Look out Verizon — you’re no longer the largest mobile company in the U.S.
Yesterday, AT&T Inc. announced it will buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $39 billion. Prior to yesterday, AT&T was the country’s 2nd largest wireless carrier and T-Mobile USA was the 4th largest. Now the new (combined) AT&T will be the largest cell phone company in America ahead of Verizon.
AT&T outbid the struggling No. 3 carrier Sprint Nextel Corp., which had been in talks to merge with T-Mobile USA. This new acquisition will now give AT&T 129 million subscribers and will serve about 43% of all U.S. cellphones.
For T-Mobile USA’s current 33.7 million subscribers, the news won’t have an immediate change on their service. Because of the long regulatory process, AT&T expects the acquisition to take at least a year for approval. But once the deal is completed, T-Mobile USA customers will get access to AT&T’s smartphone line-up, including the iPhone. AT&T is also said to be looking into how to deal with the “no contract” rule current T-Mobile customers enjoy.
Although AT&T may have lost their exclusive deal with the Apple iPhone earlier this year, this latest move will more than make up for any lost customers who recently switched over to Verizon.
This could end up being big for att. But more than likely we won't be seein those tmobie commercials no more saying they are better than att.