ch a huge move, and there are so many people worried about its possible ability to dominate the broadband market among others that Microsoft might be aloud to remain an intact company, since they cant approve the Mega-Merger fueling a media monster that will control access to millions of subscribers and then turn around and tell Microsoft that they have to break up because they might be doing the same thing.It is amazing how the landscape can change in such a short period of time. At one time AT&T was the biggest suppliers of telephone service to the country, and with the intervention of the government they were broken up into smaller companies in order to promote competition, slowly AT&T built itself back up to a major player in the Long distance, Internet access, Wireless communications and broadband Cable services. Now in a very risky move to AT&T went on a buying spree of small cable companies in an attempt to dominate the broadband cable services, with that they incurred a huge debt, leaving themselves in a very weak position, with the possibility of having to sell off some of its parts in order to compete effectively with the new AOL/Time Warner combination. If that were to happen the smaller AT&T companies would not be able to keep the acquisition vultures away and would leave them very vulnerable to takeovers from rich and fast moving Internet companies that could use their assets. Which would leave us in a world where the AT&T name would be nothing but a memory. I think that the main impact this will have on every industry is that is sets standards. This will pave the way for bigger mergers that will limit the choices that we have as consumers, also it will limit the growth of new companies in areas that in the early 90s the large companies like AT&T, Time Warner and Disney only dreamed of getting a part of.It is hard to compare the AOL/Time Warner merger with other big mergers of the past. Historically mergers have been done ...
