Rural Cellular Association Filed Petition to Deny AT&T/T-Mobile

The proposed transaction presents a stark choice: AT&T can either spend $39 billion to eliminate a growing competitive threat (and the one with the lowest-priced service offerings among the nationwide carriers), or it can invest that capital in new broadband networks and improved service quality and deliver substantial public interest benefits in the process. The Federal Communications Commission’s response will have profound implications for competition, economic growth, innovation, and consumer welfare.

Absent the proposed acquisition, AT&T would be forced to respond to mounting consumer demand and competitive pressures by building out the considerable broadband spectrum it has warehoused and by deploying new technologies to make more efficient use of the spectrum on which it currently relies. That future would entail significant infrastructure investment, job creation, and broadband deployment. And it would preserve retail and wholesale competition, as T-Mobile would remain a viable nationwide carrier that offers consumers the lowest-price plans among its peers over what T-Mobile claims to be the nation’s largest 4G network.

In contrast, if AT&T were allowed to gobble up one of only three nationwide rivals, the merged entity would focus on consolidating existing networks in lieu of building out new facilities; it would shed unnecessary workers instead of creating new jobs; and it would move the national wireless marketplace from a state of already troubling concentration to outright duopoly, heralding an era of higher prices, diminished service quality, and reduced innovation. Following the transaction, AT&T and Verizon would each have more subscribers than all of the nation’s other wireless carriers combined, and AT&T would enjoy monopoly power in the wholesale marketplace for roaming services as the only remaining nationwide GSM carrier.

RCA, an organization representing the interests of nearly 100 competitive wireless carriers, including many rural and regional carriers, opposes this unprecedented transaction because the severe harms it threatens would vastly outweigh any public interest benefits.