CEO Of AT&T Furious With FCC For T-Mobile Deal

AT&T Inc. (T) Chief Executive Randall Stephenson is angry with the Federal Communications Commission.

After observing his $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA fall to the ground last year under the weight of regulatory resistance, Stephenson used his company’s 4th-quarter earnings call as an opportunity to strike out at the agency. He said the FCC was blocking industry growth by failing to auction off new licenses for wireless airwaves, or spectrum.

Stephenson stated that the FCC is intent on picking winners and losers rather than letting these markets work. Adding that growth can’t continue without more spectrum being cleared and brought to market. And in spite of all the speeches from the FCC, they are all still waiting.

AT&T gave the argument that the spectrum it would gain from the T-Mobile deal was the most efficient way to expand high-speed mobile broadband to the broadest swath of Americans. Yet rivals are pointing out that AT&T has excess airwaves it isn’t using and, last month, got FCC approval to purchase about $2 billion worth of spectrum from Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM).

An FCC spokesman stated that the agency had approved more than 300 mobile transaction applications in the past 2 years, including the Qualcomm deal. Spokesman, Neil Grace stated that unfortunately these facts were completely ignored in the conference call.

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Tags: ATT, fcc, federal communications commission, neil grace, QCOM, Qualcomm, randall stephenson, regulartory resistance, spectrum, T-Mobile, wireless airwaves