As expected, AT&T on Sunday announced plans to acquire DirecTV in a deal worth $48.5 billion.

AT&T positioned the deal as a way to provide more customers with mobile, broadband, and pay TV service bundles.

"This is a unique opportunity that will redefine the video entertainment industry and create a company able to offer new bundles and deliver content to consumers across multiple screens – mobile devices, TVs, laptops, cars and even airplanes," Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

"U.S. consumers will have access to a more competitive bundle; shareholders will benefit from the enhanced value of the combined company; and employees will have the advantage of being part of a stronger, more competitive company, well positioned to meet the evolving video and broadband needs of the 21st century marketplace," said Mike White, president and CEO of DirecTV.

AT&T also talked up the sports content offered by DirecTV, like NFL Sunday Ticket, which provides access to out-of-market games.

If the deal passes muster with regulators, AT&T has committed to expanding the reach of its high-speed broadband service to 15 million customers, largely those in rural areas, within four years.

Perhaps in anticipation of concerns that regulators might raise, AT&T said it will commit to providing standalone, wired Internet service of at least 6 Mbps in its current footprint at the same price for at least three years. DirecTV will do the same for its TV service.

AT&T said it will also commit to the FCC's now-defunct open Internet rules that were put in place in 2010, regardless of the outcome of the agency's pending rules. Comcast - which is bound to the rules until 2018 as part of its NBC Universal deal - has also pledged to make Time Warner Cable beholden to the net neutrality rules should its controversial merger get approval.

And just as Comcast has promised to divest some of its holdings to Charter Communications in order to get the TWC deal done, AT&T has pledged to divest its interest in America Movil. DirecTV's Latin American business has more than 18 million subscribers, including all Sky Mexico customers. (For more, see PCMag's rundown of the Fastest ISPs 2014 in Mexico.)

The deal does not affect AT&T's plan to bid in the 2015 spectrum auction, to which AT&T has committed $9 billion "provided there is sufficient spectrum available."

Consumer group Public Knowledge said in a statement that it was skeptical of the deal. "Does AT&T plan to frame this as allowing it to compete more effectively with Comcast? If so, that is yet another reason why policymakers should be skeptical of the pending Comcast/Time Warner Cable transaction," the group said. "We also need to know more about whether AT&T plans to offer some kind of wireless/pay TV bundle, and what kinds of services it could offer in both U-Verse territories and nationwide. Policymakers will have to ask a lot of tough questions when looking at this deal."

In 2011, AT&T tried unsuccessfully to acquire T-Mobile.

For more, watch PCMag Live in the video below, which discusses the implications of AT&T's DirecTV acquisition.