AT&T-T-Mobile USA deal may face regulatory hurdles

From CNET News.com: From a network and technology perspective, the $39 billion marriage between AT&T and T-Mobile USA is a no-brainer, but the companies may have to do some smooth talking to get the deal approved by regulators.

AT&T and T-Mobile USA, which is owned by German phone company Deutsche Telekom, each use the GSM technology and each company plans to deploy the 4G technology known as LTE in the future. AT&T plans to launch its LTE network this summer, and T-Mobile has said in the past that LTE is on its roadmap.

Currently, each company has been upgrading its network to the latest version of 3G wireless technology called HSPA+. (T-Mobile stirred up controversy last summer when it began marketing the HSPA+ network as 4G. AT&T, which initially criticized T-Mobile for this, began calling its own HSPA+ network 4G earlier this year.)

The technology synergies between T-Mobile and AT&T are stark contrast to how T-Mobile lined up with Sprint Nextel, which had been rumored to be eying T-Mobile for more than two years. Sprint uses a different network technology called CDMA, which is the same technology that Verizon Wireless uses. What's more Sprint is using WiMax for its next generation wireless network.

While regulators would have been much more eager to see No. 3 Sprint Nextel merge with No. 4 T-Mobile so that they could take on No. 1 Verizon Wireless and No. 2 AT&T, the reality is that such a scenario would have been an integration nightmare for Sprint. Sprint is still struggling to make sense of its 2005 acquisition of Nextel, which also used a completely different technology.

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