California's Greenlining Institute Opposes AT&T Merger

The advocacy and public policy group Greenlining Institute objected to the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger in California, saying it would hurt competition and eliminate jobs.

The California-based group, which has also opposed the merger in filings with the Federal Communications Commission, asked the California Public Utilities Commission to require more information from AT&T. "The merger would harm competition in the retail value-conscious wireless services market; low-income and other value-conscious consumers would face increased prices and degraded quality of service," Greenlining says in its filing. "The merger would also harm competition in wholesale markets; the elimination of T-Mobile as the dominant value-conscious provider would give AT&T the incentive and ability to engage in anticompetitive conduct in the backhaul and roaming markets."