DOJ ALLOWS AT&T TO BUY CENTENNIAL,REQUIRES MARKET SALES

摘要

The Justice Department approved AT&T's purchase of Centennial but ordered AT&T to sell its assets in eight cellular market areas in Louisiana and Mississippi. "These divestitures are necessary to preserve the benefits of competition for wireless customers in these areas," said Christine Varney, head of DOJ's antitrust division. Without the divestitures, the deal would "substantially lessen competition to the detriment of consumers of mobile wireless telecommunications services in those areas, and likely would result in higher prices, lower quality and reduced network investments," the department said. The FCC is still reviewing the $944 million cash purchase and could order AT&T to take other steps. Sprint Nextel is asking for guarantees that AT&T will maintain Centennial's CDMA network in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.