For years Sprint told telecom
reporters it would "go it alone" in the telecom business. Then suddenly
the company announced it would merge with MCI. When that deal fell through
the company again insisted it was "going it alone" again.
Then Sprint announced it was
going to merge with Nextel in order to "compete with the major carriers."
So much for the "go it alone" theory.
And now that the Sprint Nextel
merger has been approved the company is trying to stop AT&T and BellSouth from
merging. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black...
Sprint Nextel expresses concern about
AT&T-BellSouth merger
(6/7)
Less than a year after federal regulators blessed its
$35 billion mega-merger, Sprint Nextel Corp. has filed opposition against AT&T
Inc.'s $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp.
A prime concern of Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) is that an AT&T-BellSouth would
control 99 percent of the wireline access at Sprint Nextel's wireless towers in
the AT&T and BellSouth service territories. Sprint Nextel must pay the wireline
companies to access those high-capacity lines and route wireless calls.
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, Sprint Nextel
noted that AT&T and BellSouth also jointly own rival Cingular Wireless, "thereby
increasing the merged company's incentive to use its special access pricing
flexibility to benefit Cingular."
Sprint Nextel outlined a dozen conditions the FCC should place on the merger
before approving it. Those conditions include prohibiting AT&T from increasing
certain access rates for 30 months.
Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 wireless carrier nationally, did not disclose in the
filing how much money it spends with AT&T and BellSouth on the access fees for
wireless calls.
