Testimony Preview: AT&T's Stephenson, Deutsche Telekom's Obermann

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The CEOs of AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, will try to allay congressional concerns about their proposed merger at a House Judiciary hearing May 26.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson will reiterate points he made before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month:
:This transaction is about consumers. It's about keeping up with consumer demand. It's about having the capacity to drive innovation and competitive prices for consumers. And most important, it's about giving consumers what they expect — fewer dropped calls, faster speeds and access to state-of-the-art mobile broadband Internet service — whether they live in a large city, a small town, or out in rural areas."

Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann will cite competition from online voice services such as Skype and Google Voice. "T-Mobile has been caught in the middle of this dynamic marketplace and has had an increasingly difficult time competing," he notes. He will make it clear that DT is thinking more about Europe than the U.S., potentially a selling point for lawmakers who would like to see the No. 4 U.S. cell phone company move into American hands. Obermann says DT would have trouble investing in T-Mobile even if spectrum were available for purchase due to the company's needs in Europe. "Even if [spectrum were] available, such an acquisition would have forced Deutsche Telekom to reallocate funds from our core European operations into T-Mobile USA — which would have been very difficult for us given our overall group debt situation and our capital investment needs in Europe."


Testimony Preview: AT&T's Stephenson, Deutsche Telekom's Obermann