The FCC Hits Back At AT&T, Reminds Us They Would Have Cut Jobs No Matter What
After AT&T’s tactless attack on the FCC this morning all but accused them of grossly misjudging the fortunes of T-Mobile, the FCC has fired back with their own brief statement.
In a short period of time, T-Mobile has re-emerged as a vibrant competitor in the mobile marketplace. Competition benefits all wireless consumers. The bottom line is that AT&T’s proposal to acquire a major competitor was unprecedented in scope and the company’s own confidential documents showed that the merger would have resulted in significant job losses.
The FCC’s prediction that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger would result in layoffs is in fact supported by FCC research, especially considering factors AT&T was accused of hiding in redacted documents. While one might argue that T-Mobile has yet to “re-emerge as a vibrant competitor,” the FCC is right that redacted AT&T documents showed job losses greater than the 3300 jobs T-Mobile cut yesterday.
The bottom line is that 3300 people are out of the job and while AT&T may have promised not to cut call center jobs, job cuts were bound to come from somewhere. If not the call centers, job cuts would have come from another department. Can we really say that the 1,900 people who won’t be employed by T-Mobile in three months would have been better off with AT&T at the helm?