AT&T is free to complete its acquisition of BellSouth, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said Wednesday, ruling the deal won’t reduce competition in the telecommunications marketplace.While the decision is still open to review by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the announcement clears a major hurdle for the US$67 billion purchase.Members of the U.S. Congress and rival phone carriers have pleaded with government regulators to block the deal, fearing it would thwart competition. Telephony providers signing a recent petition to the FCC included XO Communications, Talk America Holdings and NuVox Communications.Indeed, the combined companies would cover a significant portion of the United States. Just as SBC Communications expanded its western and southwestern regional phone network when it acquired AT&T’s nationwide long-distance services along with the AT&T name in 2005, AT&T would add southeastern regional phone service with the proposed BellSouth deal. However, DoJ lawyers said that neither company—AT&T or BellSouth—would have to sell off any networks, as regulators had required before approving SBC’s bid for AT&T.The DoJ’s antitrust division had investigated the deal’s impact on future competition for wireless broadband services, as well as the areas where the two companies currently compete, including residential local and long-distance service, business telecommunications and Internet services. Investigators found that consumers’ welfare would not be harmed by the proposed buyout, thanks to the presence of other competitors, changing regulatory requirements and the emergence of new technologies such as voice over IP, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett said in a release.Barnett also said the deal would not affect “net neutrality,” the concern that a communications provider might favor its own Internet content over a competitor’s. Although the deal will certainly increase the number of subscribers to AT&T’s broadband network, the majority of nationwide Internet users are served by rivals such as Verizon Communications, Qwest Communications International, Comcast and Time Warner, he said.-Ben Ames, IDG News Service (Boston Bureau)Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Resilient data backup and recovery is critical to enterprise success As global data volumes rise, business must prioritize their resiliency strategies. By Neal Weinberg Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Democratizing HPC with multicloud to accelerate engineering innovations Cloud for HPC is facilitating broader access to high performance computing and accelerating innovations and opportunities for all types of organizations. By Tanya O'Hara Jun 01, 2023 6 mins Multi Cloud brandpost Survey: Marketers embrace AI at expense of metaverse investments Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has quickly rocked the world of marketing. Sitecore polled B2B marketers on their perceptions of GAI. Here’s what they said. By Dave O’Flanagan, Sitecore Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Artificial Intelligence news Zendesk to lay off another 8% of its staff, cites macroeconomic issues The new tranche of layoffs comes just six months after the company let go of 300 staffers and hired a new CEO in order to navigate its operations through macroeconomic distress. By Anirban Ghoshal Jun 01, 2023 3 mins CRM Systems IT Jobs Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe