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Sprint puts AT&T, T-Mobile lawsuit on hold

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 at 10:15 AM

Sprint has been adamantly opposed to AT&T buying T-Mobile and it has even sued to block it but now Sprint and Cellular South have put these suits on hold based on the latest stumbling blocks to the acquisition.

According to Bloomberg, a judge delayed the lawsuits by request until Jan. 12 (which happens to be my birthday) because AT&T has until that date to tell the court if it will move forward with its attempt to buy T-Mobile. Basically, AT&T is facing long odds to pass regulatory approval – the DOJ is actually suing AT&T over it – so the Sprint and Cellular South lawsuits may not even matter in the long run.

Sprint and Cellular South were suing for a variety of reasons but the actual cases were limited to allegations that the merger/acquisition would impact access to handsets and that it would have a negative impact on mobile roaming. AT&T has fought too hard and spent too much money to just let this die without fighting until the last minute but it’s already looking like all the parties are looking toward fallback options.

[Via Bloomberg, photos via Shuterstock, zimmytws]

About The Author

Marin Perez

Marin Perez has torture tested cell phones and smartphones for industry leaders like CNET and InformationWeek. He remembers when 4G was just a screen on PowerPoint presentations and is fascinated with the amount of innovation out there. Marin has spent a lot of time with BlackBerry and Android but he finally broke down a bought an iPhone to see what all the hype's about. He also has too many tablets.

  • http://twitter.com/snidely1459 Snidely

    The best bet for AT&T would be to keep delaying through Nov 2012 and dump tons of cash on the republican nominee in hopes that he wins.