Lawmakers ask agencies to analyze potential effects on market structure and performance, consumer welfare, American jobs  
 
WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, Representatives Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a careful, comprehensive and expeditious review of the proposed AT&T – T-Mobile merger and its potential effects on the mobile wireless broadband market, innovation and consumers across the country. The FCC recently released its annual report on wireless competition, finding that the wireless phone market has grown more concentrated over the years.

“We believe that AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy – a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace,” write Reps. Markey, Conyers and Eshoo in the letter. “Such industry consolidation could reduce competition and increase consumer costs at a time our country can least afford it.”

Rep. Markey is a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and former chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Rep. Conyers is the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Eshoo is Ranking Member of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee.
 
The letter to the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission can be found HERE .
 
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