Telecom giants AT&T and Deutsche Telecom have concluded an agreement for AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA.
Of course, the sale has the small matter of a $39 billion pricetag, but hey, details, right? After all, this means that the combined AT&T/T-Mobile customer base will include 130 million people. (That’s around $300 per person. Nice to be valued, isn’t it?)
Supposedly, the resulting merger will allow for much more efficient and straightforward phone networks, but it would also create a “de facto GSM monopoly” within the US market. And although the deal itself is concluded, there’s still plenty in the way of our future monopolistic telephone overlords. The merger has an estimated 12 months of time to get through all the paperwork, and if regulatory bodies don’t permit it to happen, AT&T will be owing T-Mobile $3 billion dollars along with some infrastructural framework.
For a more detailed analysis of the situation, check here.