AT&T blasts FCC staff report; says it underscores the agency’s “utter absence of balance”
In its notably strong reaction to the 109-page staff report that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had released on Tuesday, AT&T said that the report - which it feels should not have been released in the first place - is clearly "one-sided."
Blasting the FCC staff report, which highlighted concerns that AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile would not only restrict competition all across the US but will also result in higher prices for consumers, AT&T's leading lobbyist Jim Cicconi said in a Thursday blog post that any "fair-minded person" could plainly see that the report was essentially "an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis."
Noting that the FCC document "cherry-picks facts to support its views and ignores facts that don't," AT&T said that the report underscores the agency's "utter absence of balance"; and added that it "lacks all credibility."
The report was released by the FCC after the agency gave its approval to the request by AT&T and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom for the withdrawal of the T-Mobile acquisition application from review, at a time when the two companies are chiefly focused on the Department of Justice's challenge to the deal in federal court.
Dismissing AT&T's criticism of the report, an FCC spokesman said that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger amounted to the single greatest increase in wireless-industry consolidation proposed thus far. The spokesman also asserted that the expert staff at FCC had "dispassionately analyzed all of the facts, including the arguments AT&T rehashes today."
