AT&T will not acquire T-Mobile before February 2012

AT&T found itself facing a very large obstacle when the United States Department of Justice Decided to file an antitrust suit against them to stop the T-Mobile merger. On Wednesday, the DoJ, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom met to nail down a date for a trial date that will determine if the deal should go through. During that meeting, Judge Ellen Huvelle decided on February 13, 2012 as the start date for a non-jury trial.

The trial has been given a completion time of six weeks, but neither the DoJ or AT&T feels the trial will take that long to conclude. February 13 was chosen because it falls in between dates that were requested by both sides.

The DoJ believes AT&T will become too dominant a force in the wireless industry if it’s allowed to acquire T-Mobile USA. It believes such a move will be very negative from a competitive standpoint. In the end, the DoJ feels customers will suffer from higher prices.

Other opponents to the merger include seven states, Sprint and Cellular South to name a few.

Read [Reuters]