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Comment by malandrew | Hacker News Reader

Telecom infrastructure is entirely too important to a region's sovereignty to allow any foreign company to own and operate. I hope AT&T is slowly excluded from every single market outside the United States. They don't deserve to operate anywhere else. Heck, given their complicitness in dicking over their their customers, they don't deserve to operate in the US either.

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> Telecom infrastructure is entirely too important to a region's sovereignty to allow any foreign company to own and operate.

Using the same line of reasoning, should T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) be excluded from the United States? That would be a shame, they have done a lot to shake up the U.S. wireless market. A new entrant in Europe might have a similar effect there.

T-mobile is actually officially independent of Deutsche Telekom because the FCC has the same rule.

I suppose that depends on your definition of "independent." They are a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. When T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS merged, the agreement was signed in Bonn, Germany, not Bellevue, Washington.

It really depends on the FCC's definition, but yeah, I concede the point that they are only just independent enough to make the FCC happy.

I wonder if AT&T would be ready for the telecom competition landscape in Europe. At least in Northern Europe, the competition is very fierce and the prices are quite low thanks to that. Looking at US mobile prices, I don't think the competition there is working very well.

Yes, I think they would have a tough time. Then again, maybe they will bring something new to the table.

I don't think the competition there is working very well.

There isn't meaningful competition anywhere in the USA. Regulatory capture (the famed "revolving door" between the US Federal Government and large corporations) means that major carriers have carved up the USA into territories in which they have a local monopoly. There are other factors, but that's the big one.

Verizon in particular, but AT&T is from the same lineage (ex Ma Bell). The only other players in this league are the Cable companies and Hollywood. The only reason these industries have not been disrupted...

Possibly yes. I would imagine that doing so would basically subject AT&T to the Sherman anti-trust act, resulting in having it broken up again like in the 80s.

"Telecom infrastructure is entirely too important to a region's sovereignty to allow any foreign company to own and operate."

While I agree with the premise, the conclusion is too strong. I'm ok with foreign companies running telecoms as long as they are heavily regulated - up to the point of full forfeiture of the infrastructure if they screw with the national interest. Mostly because it is not that easy to define 'foreign' and once you do, it is not clear why 'non-foreign' companies would be less likely to screw the region's sovereignty that 'foreign' ones.

Most of the Latin America mobile market is in the hands of Telefonica (Spain) and America Movil (Mexico):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operator...

I would epect that it is currently the norm for technologically less developed countries to let foreign companies run their telecom infrastructure. But they might get more sensitive in the future and develop further at the same time. They will probably reclaim their infrastructure one day.

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