Consumers Leading Opposition To AT&T T-Mobile Merger

A lot of organizations endorsed AT&T's proposal to acquire and merge with rival T-Mobile. Even a group of 10 state attorneys general backed the deal.

But consumers, the people who actually use cell phones and pay the bills, have never been all that enthusiastic. In fact, you might say some have been absolutely hostile to the deal.

When the U.S. Justice Department filed an anti-trust lawsuit to block the merger, you could almost hear some ConsumerAffairs.com readers cheering. Readers like Jack, who describes himself as a company president from Miami, Fla., who depends on his Blackberry on business trips, wrote to ConsumerAffairs.com in July, complaining about billing problems with T-Mobile.

Cartel

“To leave T-Mobile and go to another company, unfortunately there is no alternative with the Blackberry emails overseas - only AT&T,” Jack told ConsumerAffairs.com. “But T-Mobile is going to merge with AT&T soon, it will create a cartel on the Blackberry emails overseas. I hope very much as a citizen of the USA that FCC will not approve the merger between T-Mobile and AT&T.”

Dustin, of Iowa City, Iowa, wrote in March about his regret at leaving T-Mobile for AT&T, unaware that the two companies were about to announce a merger.

“I have to dial a number five or more times regularly to get the call to go through,” Dustin said. “This is ridiculous, with the price of AT&T being one of the highest in the market, I expected better! I should have just grabbed a tablet from T-Mobile so I could Facetime my family while I'm on the road. Overall I am very displeased it is almost like I don't have a phone at all the way it lacks reception.”

'Less competition not the American way'

Other consumers have posted comments on our stories about the proposed merger. Commenting on our story about growing criticism of the deal, one poster named Dave said “Ask the T-Mobile users. We all know what saved AT&T. Apple did! That's how come they can throw all that money around. Less competition is not the American way.”

“This could raise cell phone rates for everyone, not just T-Mobile users,” another poster, Daniel, said. “Less compition means higher prices, its basic economics. Let's band together and stop this, everyone speak out.”

Another poster, Craig, chimed in with “AT&T + T-Mobile = better reception? Oh, that's a good one.”

A ConsumerAffairs.com analysis of about 1.5 million consumer postings on social media sites found consumer sentiment about AT&T roughly evenly divided.  In March, when the proposed merger was announced, consumers made about 10,000 negative comments about AT&T and about 11,000 positive ones.

Chart shows positive sentiment (above) vs. negative (below)

Perhaps more telling are the sentiments expressed by about 2.3 million consumers about T-Mobile during the same period of time.  During March, about 20,000 consumers expressed positive sentiments about T-Mobile, compared to 7,800 negatives, as shown in the chart below.

Real reason?

In our story quoting Free Press President Craig Aaron saying "We now know the truth: AT&T is willing to pay a $39 billion premium for one reason and one reason only — to kill off the competition," he got a big “amen” from Lisa, a reader in Utah.

“This bottom lines the real reason for the acquisition,” she said.

The Justice Department challenge was not unexpected, but it came a lot earlier in the process than many people expected. In the Wall Street Journal's "Heard On The Street," the business Bible noted that powerful political forces were lining up in favor of the deal. It called the government anti-trust suit a demonstration that “legal issues carried the day.”

Just because the government has challenged the merger in court, that doesn't mean it is dead. AT&T is expected to vigorously counter the suit.

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Sentiment analysis powered by NetBase