Sprint: AT&T Tells One Story to Regulators, Another to Investors

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AT&T has attempted to justify its takeover of T-Mobile with a series of fundamentally inconsistent statements. AT&T’s claims to the Federal Communications Commission, Congress and the public about jobs, its network, its plans to deploy mobile broadband and its view of T-Mobile’s future are at odds with its internal documents and contrary to what it has told investors.

One example of AT&T’s distortion and spin was revealed when it inadvertently disclosed that its estimate of the cost to expand its LTE coverage to 97% of the U.S. population was a fraction of the $39 billion purchase price for T-Mobile. Until the accidental disclosure of the facts, the public had no way of knowing that one of AT&T’s primary purported justifications for the takeover was wholly without merit. In another example, AT&T has claimed in Washington that its takeover of T-Mobile would create jobs (or at least “job years”), yet reassured Wall Street that it will cut jobs, close stores, slash expenses, and curtail investment. AT&T has spun one story to the public, while the facts it has hidden from the public tell quite a different story; it has told one version of its story in Washington, yet a vastly different version on Wall Street.

AT&T’s flatly inconsistent statements raise “substantial and material question[s] of fact” under Section 309(e) of the Communications Act, mandating that the FCC designate the proposed transaction for hearing. More broadly, AT&T has not come close to meeting its burden of demonstrating, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the proposed takeover would serve the public interest. The pleading cycle in this proceeding closed on June 20 and the facts do not support AT&T’s claims. Accordingly, Sprint urges the FCC to act promptly to designate the transaction for hearing.


Sprint: AT&T Tells One Story to Regulators, Another to Investors