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Comment by Vincentmb | Hacker News Reader

I definitely understand the resistance to this merger, especially on Dan Hesse's part, but lets step back and think about what a "big two" would look like (Don't we live in a free-market?). A Verizon, AT&T dominated market is still going to drive innovation and maybe even more important an AT&T merger with T-Mobile will help to improve the quality of their service for their customers. As an AT&T customer myself, I'm all for it. One thing I know for sure; $7 Billion in failure is going to drive AT&T to do what it takes to make this happen ($3 billion breakup fee in cash an additional $3 to $4 billion in spectrum and services).

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A Verizon, AT&T dominated market is still going to drive innovation and maybe even more important an AT&T merger with T-Mobile will help to improve the quality of their service for their customers.

You can't just trot out sentences straight from AT&T's playbook without expecting pushback, so please include supporting concepts for your bald-faced assertion that a merger will drive innovation and improve QoS. This is a serious question.

Also, can you name any similar (major market and/or market-reducing mergers) that have resulted in the benefits you describe? Ever?

Last serious question for Mr. New Account: do you work for AT&T, any of its subsidiaries, or vendors (including PR)?

> A Verizon, AT&T dominated market is still going to drive innovation

Why? Why wouldn't they just stop with "You take your half of the market, we'll take our half, and we'll push through a 5% price increase every year for more or less the same services."?

It works for the cable industry, and I can't see any reason that wireless players wouldn't be delighted with this approach. Heck, with only two real players, they might even be able to gang up on Apple and demand a larger share of the iPhone profits in the future and start forcing carrierware onto the iPhone, as with Android.

A duopoly is not a functioning free market.

Exactly. We basically have a Verizon & AT&T dominated market now, with T-Mobile and Sprint being nothing more than an afterthought; I think Sprint more-so that Tmo, but I digress.

AT&T as put off putting up new towers to keep up with use for years. Ask New York iPhone users how well that's working out for them. Meanwhile, TMO decided to get serious in the US wireless game and has been spending a lot of money building out their next-gen network while at the same time reducing the prices of their plans (or at least giving you more for the same money). VZW seems to be the only other provider serious about rolling out a 4G network, and to my admittedly limited knowledge, ATT hasn't done anything in that regard, besides try to buy the network off TMO.

Why would you possibly think anything would be different if they suddenly became the #1 provider? Based on their past actions, what would happen is they would drop all of TMO's low price contract-less all-you-can-eat plans and most likely stop the 4G rollout and just rest on what's already built. I wouldn't be surprised to see some price bumps or at the very least airtime/data reductions in there either.

What have you seen that makes you think anything else would happen?

> (Don't we live in a free-market?)

No, we do not, and certainly not like what you seem to be implying. Governments have the right and duty to step in when market actors are pursuing actions which are likely to have a deleterious effect upon the market as a whole. Dramatically decreased competition via acquisitions is one of those cases, especially in high cost-of-entry markets like wireless.

Come on now. They implement data caps at the same time, they implement higher costing texting plans at the same time. I find it hard to believe that you think a AT&T/Verizon controlled U.S. cell phone market would be good for the average U.S. citizen.

Are we pretending like the US mobile phone market drives innovation in anything but price-gouging? Most of my foreign friends' service has been strictly superior to mine for years.

There are differences. If you have a plan in California, it works in New York. But if you're in Europe, good luck getting your unlimited data from France to work in Germany.

But aren't the users who need cross-continental/cross-country service the edge case? I would gladly trade-off inferior quality on a national scale for superior quality locally.

I guess if you enjoy getting off a plane and having no way to contact anyone, find a map to your hotel, and so on, this is a good tradeoff. For me, it's a terrible tradeoff.

Dont get me wrong I love having the capability you describe, but outside of the HN community I have to believe that the greater majority of users do not travel enough to justify national plans.

Data roaming is expensive (for now), but there are EU-wide caps on roaming charges for voice, so it's not all bad.

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