Eric Schmidt's appearance on Capitol Hill was not the only major tech event in D.C. today. AT&T also faced the Department of Justice in a district court over its pending merger with T-Mobile, and a trial date was set for February 13.
Lawyers for AT&T and the DOJ appeared before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle for the first major hearing in the case. Last month, the DOJ sued to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, arguing that combining the two wireless companies will "substantially lessen competition" in the market. Ultimately, the agency wants the court to find that AT&T's $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile would violate U.S. antitrust laws and hand down a court order blocking the deal.
"We are hopeful that we can reach a solution with the DOJ that addresses their concerns, but if not, we will be well prepared for trial," an AT&T spokesman said in a statement. "We remain confident that we'll reach a successful conclusion and look forward to delivering the merger benefits of additional wireless network capacity to improve customer service, expanded LTE deployment to 55 million more Americans, $8 billion in additional investment, and a commitment to bring 5,000 wireless call center jobs back to the United States."
Sprint and Cellular South are also suing to block the merger. Judge Huvelle is still thinking about whether Sprint should be allowed to join the DOJ's case, according to Bloomberg.
In a statement, Sprint said it is "pleased that Judge Huvelle decided to move both cases very quickly and in an expedited manner. Although the judge did not consolidate Sprint's case with the government's case at this time, we are pleased that the judge will hear from Sprint on the merits in oral arguments on October 24."
A status conference in the case is set for October 24.
Today's hearing was not the only bit of news coming out of the merger this week. Besides the aforementioned Cellular South lawsuit, a group of 100 Republican House members sent a letter to President Obama this week urging him to support the deal.
Similar to a letter penned by Rep. Heath Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat, the GOP members said a combined AT&T and T-Mobile would help Obama reach his goal of significant job creation. Blocking the deal, they argued, "will thwart job creation and economic growth and undermine your own efforts to achieve our shared goal."
Will the merger create or destroy jobs? That depends on who you ask. Supporters point to AT&T pledge to bring 5,000 call center jobs back to the U.S. should the T-Mobile deal close. Rival Sprint, however, recently released a report that slammed AT&T's job creation claims. The carrier partnered with David Neumark, director of the Center for Economics and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine, and found AT&T's promises of job creation to be "completely unfounded."
Meanwhile, Verizon, which has been relatively silent on the issue of the merger, said today that the deal was inevitable.
"I have taken the position that the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was kind of like gravity," Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said at an investor conference, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. "It had to occur, because you had a company with a T-Mobile that had the spectrum but didn't have the capital to build it out. AT&T needed the spectrum, they didn't have it in order to take care of their customers, and so that match had to occur."
If the government wants to stop it, they have to offer up a solution on the spectrum, McAdam said.