Mark your calendars everyone, February 13, 2012 is when U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle will begin presiding over the trial that will decide whether or not AT&T can gobble up T-Mobile like a fat kid left alone with a preservative laced honeybun. It’s expected that the decision will come within 4 to 6 weeks after the courtroom battle begins. At a hearing that took place yesterday, it was decided that Sprint will not be allowed to join the suit since it may, according to The Washington Post “prolong the trial”. Now that we know there’s a little less than 5 months to go, expect to see AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint bombaring every medium you consume with messages for and against this deal. We don’t fault T-Mobile for wanting the deal to go through, they’re just a puppet for the real T-Mobile over in Europe. That $39 billion is expected to go straight into advanced networks in countries that drive a larger share of T-Mobile’s profits.
Curiously, February is also when Mobile World Congress takes place. While it usually kicks off on the 13th or 14th, next year it’s happening on the 27th, so when we all land in Spain we’ll have something to talk about on the trade floor and in the press room. Europeans will not give a damn since the landscape is completely different on their side of the pond, but you can expect the American media to pump out pages and pages of copy about how competition has made the European wireless space more mature, both in terms of pricing plans and coverage.
What do we feel about the deal? It’ll quite possibly be the worst thing to happen to the wireless space since … well, since forever. T-Mobile does cheap, AT&T doesn’t. Anyway, expect Verizon to be sniffing around Sprint’s headquarters over the coming months, just in case.