said by Beans5:Not for long. If att buys out one of those European providers, say goodby to freedom of choice. You guys will end up just like us.
Unlikely. If AT&T buys one of the 4 infrastructure owning mobile telcos that operate in the UK, they'll actually have to compete to keep the money rolling in. There isn't a chance in hell they'll get away with pulling the crap they do in the US. Some of it is prohibited by law, the rest will just cause everyone to leave. To be honest I'll be amazed if AT&T really does buy one of them.
As far as I am aware AT&T US has an advantage in that it's the GSM carrier with the most extensive coverage, T-Mobile is GSM too appears to cover urban areas but not really rural areas but their phones are not compatible. Their only real competitor is Verizon who operate a mostly incompatible network. Sprint is also incompatible with AT&T and their network is "so-so".
The UK doesn't have this, all of the operators use the same standards (and phones are completely compatible across all networks) and all of them have similar coverage, urban or rural. So really customers choose mostly based on price or value rather than on coverage or phone offerings (they're the same).
If AT&T wanted to consolidate and buy a second telco that wouldn't be allowed either, so they'd only get as far as owning one of the four telcos.