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Comment by Anechoic | Hacker News Reader

> I can see this acquisition facing some serious regulatory and legislative scrutiny.

One can hope, but I'm not holding my breath. My guess is that FTC and FCC will make some comments, AT&T will make some small gestures, the deal gets approved and about a year later AT&T's plans increase in price by 15-20%.

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And Slashdot and Reddit and a thousand independent tech blogs will fill with upset explanations of why this is bad for the market while no formal challenge or brief to the FTC is ever mounted.

Under what grounds would it be challenged?

Genuine question: Obviously it can't be challenged on anti-trust grounds (unless the original AT&T settlement applies here somehow), and I don't know enough US law to know what else might apply. I know many countries have a regulator for mergers that can sometimes apply a "bad for competition" policy, but I thought in the US that would only apply if it forms an actual monopoly?

I think your assumption is wrong that the FTC will only block these sorts of deals if a company has a monopoly. I think they actually have rules they generally follow about how big a company they'll allow given the number and size of other market participants. Not sure if it varies by industry.

Citation? Examples?

If by "some comments" you mean hand waiving, and "small gestures" you mean agree to roll out LTE to a few major markets in exchange for a couple billion in tax credits, you're probably spot on.

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