Cingular-AT&T Wireless Merger Order Close to Circulation
The FCC decision on the Cingular-AT&T Wireless merger could circulate among the 4 commissioners’ offices beyond Chmn. Powell’s as early as this week, sources said Tues. That would clear the way for a vote on an FCC order sometime in Oct., though it could get pushed back until after the election. Sources also said that wireline-wireless competition issues raised by the merger were getting late attention.
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Cingular Chmn. Stan Sigman spoke with Chmn. Powell last week about the merger, the company said in an ex parte letter filed at the FCC. Sigman also met with 3 of the other comrs. and with the wireless staffer for Comr. Copps. A filing said Sigman told Powell: “The record… amply demonstrates the numerous public interest benefits that will flow” from the merger. Sigman also encouraged “timely” FCC action.
Mark Cooper, research dir. at the Consumer Federation of America, which has been critical of the merger’s potential effect on competition, said in a filing he spoke with Comr. Abernathy about the deal. Cooper said he stressed that “in light of the collapse of CLEC competition” and failure of the FCC to appeal the Triennial Review Order the “dominant wireless-wireline combination poses a special threat to competition.”
Sigman laid out Cingular’s most recent arguments for the merger in a speech late Tues. to the Federation for Economically Rational Utility Policy (FERUP), with Powell in the audience. He appeared to make in public the same case he recently made with commissioners in private meetings. Sigman said the first societal benefit will be spurring broadband use in rural America. “There the burning issue is a lack of competition or even a baseline service in some cases,” he said. “Through the merger, cellular will gain the capacity… to provide service to areas where communications infrastructure is now very limited.” Sigman also stressed that Cingular will push vendors to add American jobs. “Cingular is working with our vendors, most of them not based in the U.S., to increase their presence,” he said. He cited as an example an agreement by Ericsson to add as many as 1,500 U.S. jobs, should it receive a Cingular contract to provide advanced wireless services.