Fox News LIVE (live.foxnews.com) with Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle)

U.S. Seeks to Block AT&T Merger with T-Mobile

September 1, 2011 – 12:25PM Segment

I recently posted about the U.S. government’s meddling in the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile by having filed an antitrust lawsuit to prevent the deal from going through.  

It’s clear that wireless will be the communication and computing technology of the future, as sales of smartphones and tablets/iPads surge.  Competition among mobile carriers, then, is clearly important to both consumers and the economy.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit today to block AT&T’s $39 billion merger with T-Mobile. The merger, which would create the largest wireless company in the U.S., would have been a deal between the nation’s second- and fourth-largest wireless phone carriers.  The  Department of Justice filed the suit on antitrust grounds, stating that the merger would substantially lessen competition, result in higher prices and give consumers  lower quality and less innovative products.  Along with Verizon, the two merged companies would account for 78% of the industry’s revenue and over two-thirds of wireless customers in the U.S.