News

WASHINGTON — On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission restarted its shot clock for the AT&T–T-Mobile merger review. The announcement follows the submission of AT&T’s fourth and final revision of its economic models on which it is basing its case for the T-Mobile acquisition.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, AT&T confirmed it would no longer offer 1,000 text messages for $10 per month, leaving customers to choose between paying 20 cents per message or $20 per month for unlimited texts. This is the second time this year the company has eliminated lower-cost options, having removed the $5-for-200 text plan in January.

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, Free Press sent a letter to members of Congress asking them to review new information about the real motives behind AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile and reconsider their earlier expression of support for the merger.

Washington — On Monday, in response to announcements that Google would acquire Motorola Mobility and Time Warner Cable would acquire Insight, Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statements.

WASHINGTON — The case for AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile continues to unravel as new facts come to light. A Stifel Nicolaus poll of telecom analysts released Thursday gave the deal only a 49.5 percent chance of being approved.

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out a case brought by media companies seeking to have that court eliminate in their entirety the Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership rules. The case was a last-ditch effort by newspaper giant Media General to get the D.C. Circuit to hear its arguments after the U.S.

WASHINGTON — Late Monday, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would combine its reviews of AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile and AT&T’s acquisition of spectrum licenses from Qualcomm.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, Verizon Wireless submitted its response to Free Press’ complaint about the carrier’s decision to block subscribers from accessing “tethering” applications on their 4G phones.

WASHINGTON — The FCC Tuesday published the results of a study measuring the real-world performance of most major U.S. Internet service providers. While the study indicates some providers are consistently delivering their customers the promised network speeds, it reveals that many providers are falling well short of their advertised claims.

WASHINGTON — On Friday, several major telecom companies sent a proposal to revamp the Universal Service Fund (USF) to the Federal Communications Commission. The proposal, authored by Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink, Frontier, Windstream and Fairpoint, lays out industry’s plan to redirect funding to support broadband access rather than legacy telephone networks.