Telecom expert: Government ‘will prevail’ in AT&T suit

The Justice Department's bid to block AT&T's proposed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA was widely anticipated by antitrust experts, and the government is likely to succeed in thwarting the deal, a former top communications regulator tells The Lookout.

"Any objective antitrust lawyer expected this," Reed Hundt, a former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a brief phone interview.

And Hundt, who chaired the FCC from 1993 until 1997, predicted a win for the government.

"The Department of Justice will prevail," he said. "The Justice Department in its entire history has never lost a telecom case of this sort."

In its lawsuit filed today, the government charged that the proposed purchase "would remove a significant competitive force from the market."