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One of the possible implications of the AT&T/DT deal could be that American telcos would become interested in acquiring European incumbents. Except, they won't. Because:

• They are not very interested in cross-border deals to begin with. In the 20th century, companies such as SBC picked up strings of stakes in European telcos, but that was during the privatisation phase. Any foreign interest will most likely be focused on Latin America, Canada, or perhaps even Africa and CIS countries.
• Regulation will deter them.
• There will be more important investment cases, such as buying out DT from AT&T and Vodafone from VZW. But also FTTH and LTE.

You have to remember further that the T-Mobile sale from DT's perspective has everything to do with the April 2009 profit warning. In other words, it is a one-time event and will not set a new trend.

And so it is fun to read two contrary commentaries landing in my mailbox from respected consultancy firms. Who's going to teach whom a lesson?

Brand X:

Until quite recently, the US was generally seen as being somewhat backward in comparison with Europe when it came to mobile. Those days are definitely over. The US now "gets" mobile – in a big way. In developed economies, the growth in mobile is no longer being driven by telecoms, but by software and the internet. US companies have long been the dominant internet services brands (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc), and the recent Nokia/Microsoft announcement put the cap on North American dominance of the market for smartphone platform software. Having shown Europeans how to win in internet services, and in smartphone software, perhaps the Americans' next lesson for Europeans may be how to win in consumer mobile.

Brand Y:

An evil person might say that T-Mobile employees that had the experience and knowledge about how T-Mobile had experienced massive competition in Germany and Holland from successful competitors might not want to share that information - because nobody wants to admit that they got thoroughly beaten up by their much smaller competitors! In conclusion: The American T-Mobile venture has been scrapped, those that ought to be held responsible for this sad turn of events will not be accused of anything and the shareholders will once again realise that they have invested in a company that despite all their experience and knowledge could not perform.

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