CINGULAR, AT&T PROVIDE FCC WITH REAMS OF MERGER DATA
Cingular and AT&T Wireless turned over to the FCC late last week hundreds of pages of documents responding to a June 30 request for information on the companies’ proposed merger. In another merger development, Rogers Communications announced that the deadline expired at midnight Sun. for AT&T Wireless to sell its 34% in Rogers Wireless.
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In response to a 12-page set of questions FCC sent the carriers June 30 (CD July 2 p1), Cingular responded with more than 150 pages of answers, plus assorted charts. But the information provided was so heavily redacted in the public version that it will likely provide little value to analysts or others looking more closely at the merger.
Cingular explained that much of the information is “commercially and financially sensitive” and data “neither Cingular nor its parents would in the normal course of business reveal to the public or their competitors.”
Cingular said in some cases it is giving FCC the same information it previously provided to the Justice Dept. in its 2nd request for information made in April. But any data that could be used by competitors was crossed out with thick black lines. For example, FCC asked the companies to discuss their strategy for converting customers from TDMA to GSM, complete with estimated costs for doing so by Oct. 2005 and Oct. 2006. Cingular responded that it has “spent billions of dollars and countless man hours” but then blanks out what appears to be more specific information. Cingular then concedes it will have to “fill holes and improve coverage for years to come.”
Financial analysts covering the AT&T-Cingular merger told us that while they expect the combined companies to eventually have to sell off some spectrum or customers, they will not have access to much critical information that the companies are making available to DoJ and the FCC. In addition, regulators can scope huge amounts of data from the 2 carriers’ competitors, which was requested by DoJ (CD July 14 p1) and also won’t be made available to the public.
Meanwhile, AT&T Wireless had 60 days to sell its interest in the Canadian wireless firm after turning down a $1.15 billion offer from parent Rogers Communications. That amount would have gone partway toward retiring the $10.4 billion debt AT&T carries.
“We view our Rogers investment as extremely valuable and will continue to explore our options,” an AT&T Wireless spokeswoman said. Rogers Wireless, with 3.8 million customers, is Canada’s 2nd largest wireless carrier. AT&T Corp. bought a stake in Rogers Wireless with British Telecom in 1999. AT&T Wireless took over that interest when it was spun off 2 years later.