AT&T, Verizon Face Antitrust Threat from U.S. Government
Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:51 pm
The Justice Department is reviewing whether U.S. carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have engaged in anticompetitive behavior.
The inquiry, while in its early stages, is looking at whether consumers are hurt by the long-term exclusivity agreements carriers sign with handset makers.
While most agreements last for six months or less, lawmakers have raised questions about AT&T's right to sell Apple's iPhone -- two years after the first model's launch.
Carriers say such agreements allow them to take risks on expensive new smartphones and bring them to market at lower prices.
Regulators are also looking into whether carriers are unduly limiting the applications that they allow to run on their wireless networks -- such as Internet calling service Skype.
The law that covers monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior, the Sherman Antitrust Act, has been used in the past against giants such as Standard Oil and Microsoft.
I can understand the complain that was originally made by the smaller carriers however the problem is those carriers couldn't afford to have most of these devices on their network to begin with. Heck AT&T can barely keep up with all the added strain to it's network as is.
Now if you say its hurting the consumers, how is that? This isn't a piece of tech that we can't live without. You are talking about a luxury device here. Not something that is a fundamental need. It can't be a matter of anti-competitive pricing from the carriers side because the manuf. are the ones creating a such a high price point. It also can't be anti-competitive if each company is entitled to their own exclusive contract.
Do I like the pricing points - heck no! Do I want to be stuck with one Co. or the other - not really. But that is why I made the choice not to buy any of these mentioned devices.
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