Gene Kimmelman Phone Quotations

Rubber-stamping these mergers is an embarrassing milestone in this nation because it puts an end to any real hope of head-to-head telephone competition.

This is a devastating blow to the consumer. This one will lead to the end of the era of falling prices for telephone and cell-phone service.

This demonstrates the enormous failure of antitrust oversight of the phone industry.

If approved, this merger will lead to higher local, long distance and cell phone prices for consumers across the country.

Ultimately, dialing up an Internet Service Provider will be treated as a long- distance phone call. Everything about the FCC's analysis indicates that this will cause a price increase for the consumer.

What they're doing is combining local telephone monopolies from the Rio Grande all the way to the Great Lakes plus California. These are markets that have not been opened to competition.