On Monday, several U.S. consumer groups, including the Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America, said that they would oppose the AT&T and BellSouth merger. The consumer groups believe the AT&T/BellSouth merger will reduce competition and urged their members to contact the FCC and congress to ask them to prevent the deal from going through.
Members of the consumer groups believe that the consolidation of phone service providers will cause prices for local phone service, long distance phone service and cell phone service to rise. They are also nervous that the AT&T buyout of BellSouth might allow the companies to break Internet non-discrimination principles, as can be read about in the article AT&T Deal Puts Focus on Net Fees.
