Wow, who would have thunk it. A Bloomberg report says that the US Department of Justice is suing to stop the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.
That pretty much takes the wind out of AT&T’s offer yesterday to repatriate 5000 call center jobs if the deal were approved.
Not much information yet beyond the fact that the US is opposing the deal, but AT&T’s stock is nosediving while Sprint’s is soaring.
Will AT&T back off now or does it get really messy? There’s a big breakup fee of course, but given the way positions harden during election years it seems unlikely the DOJ is going to change its mind easily.
And if they do back off, what now for T-Mobile? Do they have a route other than a more problematic merger with Sprint later on? Hmmmm.
Rob Powell is founder & editor of Telecom Ramblings, which was set up in 2008. The website is dedicated to discussing trends and developments in the telecom industry.