Verizon CEO Defends AT&T/T-Mobile Merger

If there’s one thing I didn’t expect to hear today, it’s Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam give his approval to the AT&T/T-Mobile merger initiated earlier this year.

Of course, the potential business deal has been under scrutiny by the US Government, but AT&T intends to fight all the way to make the deal go through. Their argument? AT&T itself isn’t happy with its network, and the company needs T-Mobile’s network to increase its reliability. Surprisingly, Verizon agrees with that…

At an investor conference yesterday, Verizon’s CEO said:

“I have taken the position that the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was kind of like gravity. It had to occur, because you had a company with T-Mobile that had the spectrum but didn’t have the capital to build it out. AT&T needed the spectrum, they didn’t have it in order to take care of their customers, and so that match had to occur.”

McAdam said that he’d told the Federal Communications Commission that not approving the deal would ultimately harm American consumers.

A strong endorsement that might just be what AT&T needs, especially when Sprint is publicly making a case against the deal.

Why do you think Verizon CEO is approving of the deal?

[BGR]