The Rural Telecommunications Group (RTG) commends the FCC’s decision earlier today to release a comprehensive report documenting why AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile will result in public interest harms that vastly outweigh potential benefits. While the Commission has agreed to grant AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s request to withdraw their applications, the agency has concluded that too much time, energy and government resources have been spent analyzing the merger for it not to be made available to the American public. RTG also applauds the FCC’s decision to forward a copy of the report to Judge Huvelle which will be used in her review of the Department of Justice case against AT&T.

“After spending untold millions of dollars trying to convince regulators and consumers that the proposed takeover of T-Mobile is in the public interest, AT&T has failed. The FCC’s report concludes (as RTG surmised from the very beginning) that this transaction is not in the public interest. No amount of lipstick on this pig of a deal is going to change the fact that AT&T has been trying to eliminate a robust competitor,” said Carri Bennet, RTG’s General Counsel. “The FCC has spent over 8 months analyzing why this deal is terrible to consumers and it is a prudent decision by Chairman Genachowski that the fruits of that labor be shared with Judge Huvelle who is presiding over the antitrust cases.”

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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