Readers React: Is there such a thing as a ‘pro-consumer’ merger?

The proposed merger of AT&T and DirecTV, along with the Comcast-Time Warner Cable combination in the works, will enable two very large companies to become even bigger. (“AT&T-DirecTV deal to further transform media and telecom landscape,” May 18)

The benefit will be reduced competition for the newly formed businesses. The impact will be pricier cable and satellite TV service for customers. Unless the public is very vocal, these mergers will be approved.

Company lobbyists are already making the rounds on Capitol Hill. It’s up to us to scrutinize every member of Congress before the next election.

Don Evans

Canoga Park

Where are the government trust-busters when we need them?

Dodger games are not broadcast to millions of people because Time Warner arrogantly overpaid for the distribution monopoly. And now we have the chief executive of AT&T having the arrogance to say that his company’s takeover of DirecTV will be “pro-competitive and pro-consumer.”

What has this country and the federal government’s consumer protection role come to? Need we mention the federal government’s failure to control banks that were “too big to fail” prior to the economic meltdown of 2008?

Jim Gould

Burbank

When AT&T was effectively broken up in the 1980s to foster competition in the phone business, it was a good start.

What a pity that many years later AT&T would be allowed not only to dominate the home phone business but also cellphone, TV and Internet service.

After having cable and satellite, I switched to AT&T U-verse last year. Unfortunately, with the Federal Communications Commission asleep at the wheel, we’ll all pay more for these monopolies.

Darius Adl

Los Angeles