AT&T Lawyers May Have Accidentally Torpedoed T-Mobile Acquisition

One of the biggest deals in telecommunications history may fall through because of a simple mistake made by some nameless person at a law firm. An unedited document that was accidentally made public may end AT&T's plan to acquire T-Mobile.

The document in question is the summary of a meeting between AT&T executives and lawyers from Arnold & Porter. In it, the executives reveal that their company decided it isn't worth $3.8 billion to expand the reach of its 4G LTE network from 80% of the U.S. population to 97% of the population.

However, the company later decided that it is worth $39 billion to acquire T-Mobile, and it used the excuse that it needs to make this purchase in order to expand its 4G LTE network to 97% of the U.S. population.

So AT&T is going to pay 10x more for T-Mobile than the cost of expanding its own network, and get the same 4G coverage.

Of course, this only takes LTE into account. AT&T has also said that it is buying T-Mobile to get additional bandwidth and cell towers to shore up  its voice and 3G service. The carrier has acquired a bad reputation in places like New York City and San Francisco for dropped calls and slow data service. But the FCC's main focus is on getting 4G access to people in rural areas, and while the T-Mobile deal will accomplish this, so would expanding AT&T's deployment of LTE to more of its cell towers.

Today, the FCC sent AT&T a request for more information on why it should approve the deal, considering the potential effect of removing one of the top four U.S. carriers could have on the competitive landscape for mobile phone service. This government agency, as well as consumer watchdogs, are concerned that reducing competition will allow the remaining companies to increase prices.

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