Last year, the company's executives marketed its advanced HSPA+3G network as a 4G network, although it will not hold the same capabilities in the future. Without this crucial 4G network, such as LTE or WiMax, T-Mobile will not be able to compete with the other industry competitors as consumers move even further to data-capable devices. At this point, T-Mobile's only hope of surviving is to merge with another competitor who holds these 4G capabilities (Reardon). .
Deutsche Telekom, the company that owns T-Mobile, announced that it did not have a "Plan B" in place and intended on fighting the lawsuit. Industry analysts believe that the lawsuit will eventually prevail, and Deutsche Telekom will be forced to seek out another buy for a lower price or invest heavily in adding spectrum (Leske).
"Without a deal, there's every chance T-Mobile will just cease to exist if you fast-forward three years," said an equities manager who holds stock in both Deutsche Telekom and AT&T (Leske). .
An anonymous source from the company confirmed, "No third party is going to step in, nobody will come in and take T-Mobile off Deutsche Telekom's hands. Obermann [Deutsche Telekom's CEO] did not supervise the U.S. business and completely left it on the side until it fell apart. He got to the point where there was no other option but a fire sale" (Leske). .
Another source from the company admitted that Deutsche Telekom would have to sell the majority of its assets in order to appease the Justice Department and successfully complete the merger. "It will be a tough Hollywood-style fight about the remedies. The fallback options are all worse than Plan A, so they will fight for the original plan," he said (Leske). .
AT&T announced its intentions to "ask for an expedited hearing so that the enormous benefits of this merger can fully be reviewed. The DOJ has the burden of proving alleged anti-competitive effects and we intend to vigorously contest this matter in court," according to Wayne Watts, the general counsel (Gross).
