Cingular buys AT+T Wireless

Xeni Jardin 7:34 am Tue Feb 17, 2004

$41 billion. What will the resulting company be, and do? Wow. Dan Gillmor has this to say about why the mega-merger shouldn't worry those concerned about carrier consolidation:

This merger won't necessarily be bad for competition.I've been using AT&T Wireless' GSM service for about a year now. Quality of service is marginal, and the customer service has been a bit lower than marginal. But Cingular, also a GSM carrier, has an even worse reputation. So maybe combining these two networks will create something that offers at least reasonable quality.

Cingular probably overpaid, but it's smart to make this deal in at least one respect. There's only room for a couple of mergers before the market gets too cozy for real competition. While expecting serious antitrust scrutiny from the Bush administration is probably futile, there's probably enough angst in Congress to keep consolidation from being rampant.

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