AT&T 'confident' government will approve T-Mobile deal

AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said in a presentation Monday that he is "confident" regulators will approve the proposed mega-merger with T-Mobile that would create a national carrier of unprecedented scale and overtake Verizon as the largest provider.

He portrayed the $39 billion deal as a way to spread the nation's most-advanced networks to 95 percent of Americans, fulfilling a mandate from President Obama and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and expanding top wireless services to rural regions. 

Analysts have raised serious doubts about how the company will fare in the regulatory review process. Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group, wrote Sunday that his staff had "never seen a deal with more regulatory risk be attempted in the U.S.”

AT&T general counsel Wayne Watts sought to offer reassurances Monday, arguing that the company's "prior successful transactions over the last 20 years" ground its positive predictions.

"We know regulators will focus on the facts in considering their review," he said. The "urgent, ongoing need for more spectrum" is persuasive to policymakers, according to Watts. 

"Spectrum is in short supply," Watts said. "AT&T and T-Mobile are facing impending shortages in key markets."

The scale and resources of the combined entity will bring mobile services to 46 million Americans who don't have them, the executives said.

They also fought the perception that the merger will reduce the four major wireless providers to three. 

"We think the government will look at this at a local market-by-market basis," one of the executives said. "If you're sitting in Tulsa, you don't pick up the Yellow Pages and see who provides service in San Francisco." 

From that perspective: "There's an enormous amount of competition."

They will have to defend the competitive aspects at the Justice Department, which could require the company to divest spectrum.