AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile

Low Bandwidth Caps and High Costs for all! Rethink Possible with the new Monopolistic ATT!!!

In what would be one of the biggest deals since the financial crisis broke, the US telecoms giant AT&T has agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39bn (£24bn), creating the biggest mobile operator in the US.

The deal would bring together the second and third largest mobile groups in the US and will thus face intense regulatory scrutiny. If approved, the merger would shrink the number of major national wireless operators in the US to three from four.

Last May, telecoms regulator the Federal Communications Commission warned against growing concentration among mobile providers. The agency would have to approve the transfer of T-Mobile's spectrum licences to AT&T.

AT&T will pay $25bn in cash for T-Mobile USA and the rest in stock, giving T-Mobile's German parent an 8% stake in AT&T. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors at both AT&T and Deutsche Telekom.

Together, AT&T and T-Mobile would have nearly 130m customers, about a third more than current market leader Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between the UK's Vodafone and Verizon. The combined firm would be more than twice the size of the third largest carrier, Sprint