acquisition

The U.S. government sued to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc., saying the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market.

The Justice Department complaint was filed today in federal court inWashington. The U.S. is seeking a declaration that Dallas-based AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), would violate U.S. antitrust law and a court order blocking any arrangement implementing the deal.

“AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low- priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the U.S. said in its filing.

We already pay some of the highest cell rates in the world and removing competition will do nothing but insure that those rates stay high. Hopefully the DOJ succeeds in this suit and the merger never happens.

AT&T Inc. plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs, mostly through attrition, if its $67 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp. goes through, AT&T's chief financial officer said Monday.

The work force reduction would take place over three years, AT&T's Rick Lindner said on a conference call. The acquisition is expected to close next year.

Before the cuts, the combined company would have around 317,000 employees, including Cingular Wireless LLC, which is now a joint AT&T-BellSouth venture.

Well that is just heart warming news from the AP. Of course the company will probably create 15,000 jobs in India when all is said and done.