AT&T Wants To Throw Some FCC Roadblocks Into Sprint, Clearwire Joint Venture

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Mon, Jul 28th 2008 4:12am — Mike Masnick

In a move that is clearly designed to just piss off and waste the resources of a competitor, AT&T has filed papers with the FCC opposing Sprint and Clearwire's plan to merge their WiMax divisions, which was announced a few months ago (found via Broadband Reports. Of course, AT&T has a chummy relationship with the FCC, who has allowed it to merge with telco after telco without many real conditions (and even telling it that it can ignore some of the conditions it agreed to to get those mergers approved).

In this case, AT&T claims that it isn't really opposed to the merger, but it's filing opposition papers because it feels that Sprint and Clearwire aren't receiving the same level of scrutiny that AT&T received in its mergers, specifically with regards to it spectrum holdings. This seems like grasping at straws by AT&T just to throw some sort of extra paperwork roadblock in the path of the new Clearwire, which is an obvious competitor.

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Filed Under: fcc, mergers, roadblocks, spectrum
Companies: at&t, clearwire, sprint

4 Comments

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Robert, 28 Jul 2008 @ 5:30am

AT&T
Sorry AT&T Clearwire will soon be the number one carrier!!
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The Mad Patent Prosecutor, 28 Jul 2008 @ 6:12am

Any facts?
Mr. Masnick, I am just some guy that occassionally reads your articles, and I know you are free to ignore anything I say. Be that as it may, it seems that your recent articles attempt to pass off your opinions as facts, with greater frequency. On what evidence do you base your conclusion that "[t]his seems like grapsing at straws," or that "AT&T just [wants] to throw some sort of extra paperwork roadblock in the path of Clearwire"? These assertions seem to be important points in your article, yet they seem to be unsupported. Maybe, just maybe, actually AT&T would like to prevent a competition from gaining an advantage that they (AT&T) did not have.
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- DanC, 28 Jul 2008 @ 7:14am
  
  Re: Any facts?
  AT&T has stated that they are not opposed to the merger, but that the deal requires greater scrutiny, i.e. more paperwork. If they had a serious reason to believe the deal shouldn't go through, they would have outright protested. It's a chance for AT&T to cause problems and delays for an eventual competitor.
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Allen Harkleroad, 28 Jul 2008 @ 6:50am

AT&T - Sprint
I hope this costs Sprint a HUGE chunk of cash....
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