Verizon, AT&T Customers Sue To Reverse T-Mobile Merger, Saying It Raised Everybody’s Prices
from the merge-ALL-the-things! dept
We just got done noting how pretty much all of the criticism of the Sprint T-Mobile merger by economists and consumer advocates wound up being true. The deal has resulted in more than 10,000+ eliminated jobs, steady price hikes, annoying new fees, a weaker T-Mobile brand, and a lower quality product overall. It also clearly distracted T-Mobile from competent network security.
T-Mobile’s reddit forums are filled with employees saying the disruptive spirit of the company has been dead since the merger. T-Mobile customers are annoyed by endless new restrictions and price hikes.
But Verizon and AT&T customers are also pissed, and are part of a new lawsuit against T-Mobile arguing that the merger raised prices for everybody due to the reduction in overall wireless market competition. A federal judge in Chicago last week ruled that plaintiffs made some decent points and the lawsuit should be allowed to proceed:
“U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin in a 41-page ruling on Thursday said the plaintiffs “plausibly” argued that higher prices “flowed directly” from the $26 billion merger.”
The important time to protect consumers is before these kinds of competition-eroding deals are approved, but that very clearly didn’t happen here. Trump regulators at the FCC didn’t even bother to read about the deal’s impact before approving it. Trump “antitrust enforcers” at the FTC actively helped T-Mobile avoid regulatory scrutiny on their personal time, you know, like antitrust enforcers do.
T-Mobile’s response to the lawsuit was expected: to deny everything and insist the U.S. wireless sector is secretly super competitive:
Attorneys for T-Mobile called the lawsuit “unprecedented,” and said the plaintiffs’ damages were “speculative.”
“If plaintiffs are unhappy with Verizon and AT&T, there is a remedy available in the highly competitive market that wireless consumers enjoy today — they should switch to T-Mobile, not sue it,” attorneys for T-Mobile told the court.
The harms of mindless consolidation are not theoretical. They’re clearly documented. Yet we’re dedicated to ignoring those harms because such consolidation is hugely profitable for a handful of over-compensated executives and a few key investors (sometimes). Rinse, wash, repeat, with nobody responsible for the end result getting within a thousand miles of introspection or accountability.
I’d not expect much from the suit in terms of reform. Any payout will be a tiny fraction of the financial harm caused. The real fix lies in more stringent merger review and well funded and staffed regulators; concepts defenders of a broken but profitable status quo have no real interest in.
Filed Under: antitrust, antitrust reform, competition, consolidation, high speed internet, mergers, prices, wireless
Companies: t-mobile
Comments on “Verizon, AT&T Customers Sue To Reverse T-Mobile Merger, Saying It Raised Everybody’s Prices”
I was searching to see what they wanted. Sounds like maybe some kind of payout? I just don’t see a judge going in and trying to put that toothpaste back in the tube.
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… Judges have no expertise nor fair methodology to determine if a business merger is “anti-competitive”
and the Anti-Trust laws are extremely vague in legally defining what is an “anti-competitive” action by a business or citizen
it’s all subjective and political
The highly competitive market with only 3 options, that do not offer the same coverage in the same places.
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… so if you open a new business, you are legally required to ensure there are at least 3 other businesses offering the same services to consumers in your area — or you are guilty of Anti-Competitive practices ??
Didn't work, put it back... Ya, right.
The ultimate solution would be for the government to order the breakup of all the mergers through the years, but that will never happen. Our government only has the gonads to go after those not capable of fighting (aka. individuals).
I believe an economy is strongest when money is moving and not stagnant. The more entities exchanging money for whatever, the better. Mergers have a tendency to kill that flow.
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Nope, the ultimate solution would be to nationalize the cell towers and internet infrastructure and force the corporations to pay a rent to use it, allowing for massively lower entry to market costs and benefiting consumers by making the companies actually have to compete with each other to provide a service that people actually want, instead of the current method of providing only the things that people will pay the most for.
If you have an argument against this, my automatic answer is Chattanooga, and a mic drop. thanks for comin out!
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Yeah, coercive socialism always works great ….
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Put down the Fox/Newsmax Kool-Aid and back away.
One of the biggest cons ever pulled is businesses representing to the public they actually like a free market.
What businesses consistently want is less regulation when they are small to make it easier to break in with less overhead regardless of the consequences.
And when they become the established major players to have the protection of law such as copyright, patent, and trademark, difficulty to lay cable as broad as possible to prevent competitors.
In your last sentence, that semi-colon is incorrect. It should be a comma. The sentence should read: “The real fix lies in more stringent merger review and well funded and staffed regulators, concepts defenders of a broken but profitable status quo have no real interest in.”
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I noticed that as well, so thanks for calling it out.
To put a finer point on it: Semicolons separate independent clauses, but the second clause in that sentence is not independent.
Of course, I still see writers on Techdirt (looking at you, Tim) using incorrect phrases like “besides the point” rather than “beside the point,” so I have no hope that proper semicolon usage will become a thing here.
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hey, if we can just get rid of “could of” I’d be happy 😛
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Anyways…
The point of the merger was to reduce competition, so that the carriers could price gouge the public. This is Citizens United working as intended.
T-Mobile
I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile and have not experienced any issues relating to provider quality, and I am paying less now than I was before. That being said, the government has done a very poor job of preventing consolidation and mergers in every industry. The awful decisions by the FCC are not limited to cell phone providers. Every single entity that they have control over is having a field day merging and raising prices.
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I looked to swap to T-Mobile and their rates now are higher than what I pay at Verizon, and that’s with an extra line added on my Verizon bill compared to T-Mobile. That said I’m not on the newer VZW unlimited plans that raised rates while removing features that they called “better”, so maybe if I were on that T-Mobile would be cheaper. Hell, I looked because I’d like to get my child her first cell phone, but it’s a minimum of $40 anywhere it seems for her to be able to send a few texts and make a call in an emergency.
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US Mobile has a $5 per month line. 500 minutes, 500 texts, 500MB of data.
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Look into boost, Trac, Go, etc.
walk into a walmart and get a prepaid phone.
They start around $10 and many come with with a free phone for under $40
It’s not a status phone, but it works.
If you thought the Sprint/T-Mobile “merger” (acquisition) was horrid, just wait for the Kroger/Albertson’s (Safeway) “merger.” Not only will prices soar but most grocery employee unions will be quickly busted.
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I dread the Kroger/Albertsons/Safeway merger.
The closest market to me is Kroger-owned Ralphs. In the last eight years or so, the shopping experience has been atrocious. This has been like this at the normal Ralphs stores; the Fresh Fare ones haven’t been as hard-hit because they are all upscale.
They have a hard time stock keeping. Either they are sold out frequently or don’t have the staff to restock shelves. They are also understaffed.
And Ralphs, Vons (Safeway) and Albertsons are the big three markets in my area.
This will mean the shortages and understaffing will spread through the remaining stores, and a lot of them will have to close after a merger. Also, a store as big and cavernous as a supermarket is close to impossible to sell as real estate, unless it is demolished and turned into a giant apartment complex.
This is a merger that needs to be stopped.
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… there are other retail food outlets in your area — shop around like everybody else does
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Uh, fuck off. Not everybody else does that, as not everybody can. i don’t know where you live, but lucky privileged you.
Never mind the fact that three markets in the area (already an amazing variety) are all involved in the merger. And there are other effects beside, “I don’t want to shop at MegaMergerMart,” which isn’t even something that was said.
Big stupid mergers are bad stupid mergers. They fuck things up.
Re: Re: It’s post Covid’s but still COVID
The issue here is likely a screwed up supply chain. Your. It alone. And it has nothing to do with the store itself (in most cases).
Jewel, Meijer, Albertsons, Walmart.
One week there’s no paper. The next no water. The next no dog food. Some day we may recover. But like the Times and Wires both said, this is the new normal. You can’t get stock in any faster regardless of the company owner.
On the flip side, you still have a Ralph’s because of the big money behind it.6 large independent stores closed here in the past few years. One of them I really liked for the fresh completely local produce.
The Big T is right about one thing: They should be (*the only) company sued.
*Heavy lifting located here.
In some ways, I might support this
T-Mobile also hasn’t been keeping up with its CPUC terms and conditions. It is expected to have 94% of RURAL California with +50Mbps, and 99% of California with +50Mbps (population wise).
There are many locations where T-Mobile has given the middle finger to actually having service of any kind, while claiming 5G and LTE service is available (written to FCC).
This won’t work
All T-Mobile needs to do is ask their loyal customers to testify. I would.
My price went down post merger.
Plus we gained the one, sole, only, good thing that garbage V brand had, satellite wifi agreements. T-Mobile now offers free in flight wifi in nearly every capable flight.
There are two large carriers. AT$T and T-Mobile.
There are game players like Google and Comcast.
There are hundreds of sub contractors. Boost, Go, City, Rapid… etc.
It’s not like there aren’t choices.