UPDATE: The official Justice Department lawsuit filing is here. In it, the Justice Department notes that AT&T's internal documents specified:
"The more immediate threat to AT&T is T-Mobile...On January 5th, 2010, it announced that it had upgraded its entire network with HSPA 7.2 covering 200M POPS. It also reiterated prior statements that it would add HSPA+, capable of 3x the throughput ofHSPA 7.2, across a substantial portion of its network by 2H 2010...The one-two punch of an advanced network and the backhaul required to support the additional data demands should be taken seriously."
"TMO was first to have HSPA+ devices in their portfolio...we added them in reaction to potential loss of speed claims."This points to AT&T's attempted merger as a foremost means to eliminate its most important competitor, not to improve its service. The Justice Department goes on to state:
"Post-merger, AT&T will no longer offer T-Mobile's lower-priced data and voice plans to new customers or current customers who upgrade their service. Consequently, T-Mobile as a lower-priced option will be eliminated from the market, resulting in higher prices for a significant number of consumers."Amen. I had already been looking at other smaller providers (Cricket, US Cellular) to see what sort of price-competitive plans and phones they had, but the bottom line ended up being that T-Mobile was a leader in HSPA+ speed and delivery of that 21Mbps nationwide network. One could pay less, but you'd be stuck at 3G speeds equivalent to 1Mbps. The only possible route, would be to wait for LightSquared to build out its LTE network who would then sell access and capacity to the smaller carriers. But that would take a couple of years, making it rough for many people on T-Mobile's HSPA+ network whose contracts expired under an AT&T regime.
So yeah, this is a GREAT day for those of us T-Mobile customers.
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