What's Good for AT&T Is Good for ... AT&T

[Commentary] A talking point is a carefully constructed edifice, and no one builds an edifice without placing something behind it. On Mar. 21, the day after AT&T announced its intent to buy T-Mobile, three AT&T executives spoke to analysts on a conference call and converged on a set of terms. "Infrastructure," they said, and "investment," and "the President's wireless broadband goals." And they all agreed: A merger would bring high-speed LTE, or 4G, wireless access to 95 percent of the U.S. population.

AT&T's purchase would offer unambiguous benefits to its shareholders and to those of Deutsche Telekom, the German former state monopoly that had been unable to fix T-Mobile, its underperforming U.S. wireless subsidiary. T-Mobile and AT&T use compatible technology, and the latter can more efficiently use the spectrum that would have soon proved inadequate for T-Mobile alone. It's a good fit, which means the real sport in this merger has never been in AT&T's hometown of Dallas or in Bonn, where Deutsche Telekom is based, but in Washington, where the Justice Dept. and the Federal Communications Commission must approve the merger. When the FCC looked at Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal, the negotiations swung on network neutrality and conflicts of interest. This time around, look for one word: infrastructure.

Before agreeing to anything, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski should ask some pointed questions about this 95 percent. Where will it be rolled out? When? What average speed can users expect in each market? And he should get the answers in writing.