[December 19, 2011] LEAD: AT&T abandons T-Mobile deal Tweet Dec 19, 2011 (dpa - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- SAN FRANCISCO -- AT&T abandoned its 39-billion-dollar deal to buy US cellphone carrier T-Mobile, citing the opposition of government antitrust regulators in a statement on Monday. AT&T said it had ended discussions with Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, over what would have been the biggest corporate deal of the year. The announcement came two weeks after the Federal Communications Commission said the deal, which would have united the second and fourth largest carriers in the US, would have harmed telecommunications customers. With the collapse of the deal, AT&T is obligated to pay Deutsche Telekom a compensation package of some 3 billion dollars, plus an additional 1 billion dollars worth of wireless spectrum. The company said it would take a pretax accounting charge of 4 billion dollars to reflect the penalty fee. AT&T said in its statement that "after a thorough review of options it has agreed with Deutsche Telekom AG to end its bid to acquire T-Mobile USA, which began in March of this year." AT&T noted that the deal would have solved the spectrum shortage that is hampering the development of the US cellphone industry, and that without the merger, "customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled." The deal leaves Deutsche Telekom in a tough position as T-Mobile continues to shed customers and lose money. It is also the only one of the big four US carriers not to sell the iPhone. However, other companies, such as satellite TV provider Dish Network, have said they would be interested in buying T-Mobile if the deal with AT&T fell through. ___ (c)2011 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]