Summary
1. One day in the future, at the stroke of 12:00 midnight, the US Department of Justice may be visited by the first of three ghosts. 2. Judge Green and two of his selections could be present – good luck! 3. While another enforced divestiture would be imprudent, it would certainly shake up the telecom equipment industry.
Analysis
While it would probably not be anything akin to the creation of seven RBOCs in 1984, the valuations of equipment vendors would likely increase dramatically as there would now be other large carriers to buy their products. However, it would be terribly hypocritical for the government to get in the way in this manner. There are countless duopolies across all of the industries that have market advantages similar to AT&T and Verizon. Why single out the telecom space? Of course, the answer is clear in that it makes for favorable political results in that consumers have always tended to dislike the incumbent carriers in their areas. Nevertheless, “[a]mong the challenges for regulators will be to balance the argument against the telco duopoly of AT&T and Verizon, with the consumer-friendly pricing of triple play service bundles used to compete against cable companies.”
It is interesting that AT&T decided to respond to the news story: "We are not aware of any formal investigation, nor have they asked us to provide any information. One wonders whether its CEO would partially welcome such a prospect as a way to unload large assets from this unwieldy monstrosity created by his predecessor.
