AT&T Announces $39 Billlion Purchase of T-Mobile

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AT&T has announced that it is to acquire rival carrier T-Mobile.

You might remember reports from a couple of weeks ago that said Deutsche Telekom and Sprint were hashing out a deal that would see the latter take ownership of the former’s US mobile carrier, T-Mobile USA. According to sources, the deal would have seen Sprint merge with T-Mobile USA and Deutsche Telekom retain a majority stake in the resulting entity. However, things were supposedly being held up because the two parties can't agree on a valuation for T-Mobile USA.

This past weekend, in a surprise move, AT&T moved forward and snapped up T-Mobile for itself. Worth $39 billion in cash and stocks, DT will receive an equity stake in AT&T that, based on the terms of the agreement, would give the German company an ownership interest in AT&T of approximately 8 percent. A Deutsche Telekom rep will also take up residence on the AT&T board of directors.

AT&T is hailing the deal as an opportunity for a significant expansion of 4G LTE deployment. The carrier now says it can deploy 4G LTE to 95 percent of the population, 46.5 million more people than its current goals planned for.

"This transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO.

"It will improve network quality, and it will bring advanced LTE capabilities to more than 294 million people. Mobile broadband networks drive economic opportunity everywhere, and they enable the expanding high-tech ecosystem that includes device makers, cloud and content providers, app developers, customers, and more. During the past few years, America's high-tech industry has delivered innovation at unprecedented speed, and this combination will accelerate its continued growth."

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2012, providing it passes through the usual regulatory checks without incident. Of course, that’s another matter entirely.

Jane McEntegart

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.

47 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Dyseman
    Well, if this goes down, I'm probably safe from Price hikes w/my new 2 year contract when I bought my G2-Google HTC w/Unlimited data.
    Reply
  • cknobman
    oh yeah!!!!

    lets make the most crooked, back stabbing, bandwidth capping, fee charing, POS carrier out there even bigger!!!!

    Nothing beats an ATT and Verizon duopoly!!!!!!

    And there is no doubt that this will be allowed by our government and regulatory agencies since they are all crooked bastards and will likely be getting tidy "donations" for their support.

    Reply
  • bhaberle
    Sprint... why didn't you buy them? I would've loved a choice between GSM and CDMA. Sigh.
    Reply
  • thegamersblog
    They can afford a 39 billion dollar acquisition but can't spend a few billion to upgrade their network infrastructure to support greater bandwidth... fail... i hope this company burns in hell. I can't believe i bought their uverse package.
    Reply
  • deerhound
    This is not good news. I have always liked T-Mobile and do not look forward to AT&T, the Comcast of cell phones.
    Reply
  • vertigo_2000
    All the money they made through their iPhone exclusivity deal with Apple basically paid for this deal.

    Say what you want about AT&T, they're not stupid.
    Reply
  • blubbey
    Looks like I'm going to change networks next year.
    Reply
  • thrasher32
    F--K ME DEAD
    Reply
  • scook9
    thegamersblogThey can afford a 39 billion dollar acquisition but can't spend a few billion to upgrade their network infrastructure to support greater bandwidth... fail... i hope this company burns in hell. I can't believe i bought their uverse package.My thoughts exactly....if they have had this much cash lying around who the hell are they to keep capping plans and raising prices?

    Just a crooked as the US oil companies....charge record high gas prices....and then record record high profits (meaning their cost did not change at all!)
    Reply
  • happyballz
    YAAAYYYY everyone welcome to a world of duopoly and neverending high prices!!!!
    I really hope sooner or later gov will break all these huge companies apart into smaller more managable and customer oriented ones like they did with the baby bells back in the day. It looks like it took ATT deathstart around 30 years to melt itself together like that evil terminator once again.
    Reply