AT&T expects to give up some cell sites in T-Mobile deal
updated 06:20 pm EDT, Wed March 30, 2011
ATT plans to divest cell towers in T-Mobile deal
AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson said in an interview Wednesday that he expected to shed some cell sites if the buyout of T-Mobile is successful. There would be some markets the carrier "will have to divest," he predicted, although he wasn't willing to guess with the WSJ as to which ones these might be. The carrier has had to trade off cell sites in the past, such as through the buyout of Centennial.
Verizon has already said it would be willing to snap up cellular coverage AT&T might be forced to give up after the Department of Justice and FCC set conditions.
He was also more specific on the capacity upgrades the company hinted at during its early presentation on the merger. Coverage in New York City, second only to San Francisco in the trouble with 3G, would increase by about 30 percent without having to change anything else. The service still wasn't good enough for him to be satisfied at present.
Stephenson reiterated many of the company's talking points from the merger. He hoped to persuade the public that the market was "anything but a duopoly," referencing Sprint's warnings. Many areas were still "intensely competitive," he insisted.
Both Sprint and pro-competition advocates have disagreed sharply with the argument, noting that AT&T's interpretation falsely equates having other carriers in an area with competition. Many of the carriers used as examples, such as Cricket, MetroPCS, and US Cellular, often have just a small fraction of the share of other major carriers. Without the financial clout of a major like AT&T or Verizon, they haven't had the influence to get high-profile devices and often can't afford to buy the spectrum or technology they need to get as much coverage.
New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has already said his state would add to the investigations.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Not good for customers
"Divestment" is exactly what happened here in Oklahoma when AT&T bought Dobson Cellular a few years ago. Prior to the buy-out, we Dobson customers could roam on AT&T's system and vice versa. Dobson and AT&T were the two GSM carriers here and this was Dobson's home base. When AT&T bought Dobson, they were required to divest this 3-county RSA/CMA area system because the FCC said there would end up being only one GSM carrier after the merger, creating a monopoly, and that could not happen. So AT&T sold the system here to a small carrier based in Montana of all places, 1500 miles away, who also bought the CellularOne name and is operating here under that name. To top it off, AT&T customers can not roam on CellularOne's system here. If AT&T wants to re-cover this area they will have to build their own system, even though CellularOne's customers can roam on AT&T's system elsewhere. So we now have ONE GSM carrier here, CellularOne, operating in this 3-county area; we no longer have access to AT&T service; essentiallly a monopoly on the GSM side of things. Divestment is not good for anyone.