WASHINGTON – Today the Federal Communications Commission restarted its shot clock at day 83 for the AT&T/T-Mobile merger review. AT&T is on its fourth down with the fatally flawed submission of its fourth and final revision of its economic model and is clearly nowhere closer to the goal of making its case for the T-Mobile acquisition.

Rural Telecommunications Group General Counsel Carri Bennet made the following statement:

“AT&T has attempted to revise its economic model four times and still can’t justify the takeover as anything but a way to eliminate a viable competitor that rural Americans rely on to keep costs down and keep service viable in rural America. RTG and others have consistently pointed to examples of AT&T’s notorious past anticompetive conduct to show that this merger would be bad for rural Americans and competition in general. The evidence that is currently before the FCC and DOJ points to only one outcome: AT&T cannot justify a public interest benefit that outweighs the harm of the merger. Simply put, AT&T is out of time. Based on the facts and the law, AT&T’s hail Mary attempt at a merger touchdown will be blocked.”

About RTG – Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Rural Telecommunications Group, Inc. (RTG) is a trade association representing rural wireless carriers who each serve less than 100,000 subscribers. RTG’s members have joined together to speed delivery of new, efficient and innovative telecommunications technologies to remote and underserved communities. ruraltelecomgroup.org @RTGwireless

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