Microsoft and Facebook are throwing their weight behind the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger that would consolidate the wireless industry.
"The FCC must seriously weigh the benefits of this merger and approve it," the companies wrote in a Monday letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Several other companies signed on to the letter, including phone technology company Avaya, software and server company Oracle, Blackberry maker Research in Motion, mobile chip maker Qualcomm and Brocade.
Microsoft provided a copy of the letter. Missing in action on the letter: Google and Apple. Out of all the big technology companies, Apple has the most intimate working relationship with AT&T because the iPhone was for a long time exclusive to the AT&T. Google's Android software is the fastest growing mobile platform with 100 million users.
The companies that support the merger said in the letter, "AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile represents a near term means of addressing the rising consumer demand. For example, the merged company will be able to leverage a larger network of cell sites allowing greater reuse of spectrum and increasing the wireless broadband capacity of the network."
The companies also said they supported AT&T's promise to upgrade T-Mobile's network to LTE technology, which is often called 4G
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