Inslee worried AT&T deal could cost jobs

[cal04]

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/171855-rep-inslee-worried-that-atat-deal-could-cost-jobs

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) sent a letter to AT&T and T-Mobile on Thursday expressing his concern that their proposed merger could destroy jobs, especially in his Washington district.

Inslee, who is running for governor, wrote that the Puget Sound region has already suffered from waves of job cuts as a result of telecommunication mergers.

In 2004, Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless led to the closure of the AT&T Wireless headquarters in Redmond, Wash. In 2005, Alltel (now Verizon Wireless) acquired Western Wireless, based in Bellevue, Wash.

"Despite assurances that 'much less' than 10 percent of Western Wireless employees would be laid off, two years later only 115 of the 930 Washington employees remained," Inslee wrote.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

1. Well... DUH

[SharonAnn]

2. Of course it will. That's one of the advantages of acquiring T-Mobile.

Addtional service area at much less cost than building their own.

And the ATT ads talke about "new geographic coverage". What they neglect to say is that the coverage is already being provided by T-Mobile. If ATT acquires them, it will just slap the ATT logo on the T-Mobile locations.

Then, of course, there's the advantage of moving to a monopoly position so that you don't have price competition and you can raise your rates as much as you want.