AT&T has ‘no regrets’ over failed T-Mobile bid

AT&T, the US telecommunications group that walked away from its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA last month, had “no regrets” about pursuing the deal, said John Stankey, chief executive of AT&T’s business solutions unit.

Stankey is the first senior AT&T executive to speak about the failed bid since it was abandoned in the face of strong opposition from regulators. AT&T had promised that if the T-Mobile USA deal was approved it would extend the planned rollout of its LTE network to cover 95 per cent of the US population over the next few years. Stankey did not state whether AT&T had withdrawn that commitment but he did say the company was pushing ahead with plans to improve customer service despite the failure of the T-Mobile deal. He warned, however, that the deal’s failure “is going to be unfortunate for the industry and consumers in the longer term” and expressed frustration that the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission had opposed the deal. “We gave it our best shot but it became apparent to us that there were two agencies that would not be supportive of the deal in any form.”