Mergers & Acquisitions, Wireless | featured news

Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and six other state attorneys general join the Justice Department's antitrust suit, say the deal would result in less competition in the wireless market.

Looking at AT&T and its planned acquisition, it’s fair to suggest that it could not attract the financing necessary to complete the purchase if its plan was to raise prices. Not only would such a move be unrealistic given the existence of Verizon and other smaller competitors, it would also be self-defeating for high prices signaling to those outside the mobile-phone space a potentially profitable competitive opportunity.

AT&T announced on Sunday that it agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, in a $39 billion deal that will reshape the cellular telephone industry. The merger — one of the largest since the onset of the financial crisis — would combine the second and fourth largest cellular carriers in the nation, bringing together AT&T’s 95.5 million wireless subscribers with T-Mobile’s 33.7 million customers.

Hewlett-Packard has agreed to buy struggling smart-phone maker Palm for nearly $1 billion in cash. HP said Palm's webOS operating system will help it compete in the smart-phone market.

Networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. agreed to acquire Starent Networks, a maker of infrastructure equipment used by wireless carriers, for about $2.9 billion. The technology bellwether—which has been hurt by a pullback in customer ...