After nine months of pursuing T-Mobile USA, AT&T has pulled out of bidding. This comes soon after the FCC and Justice Department started to get involved to ensure consumer choice and controlled prices in the market. We have all been following this merger and expected it to end this way once the Justice Department got involved.

AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson says that this in no way will slow the success of AT&T nor will it stop future investments.

“To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest… However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.”