As promised, AT&T—jointly with T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom—has filed its response to last week’s lawsuit blocking its proposed merger with T-Mobile. The Department of Justice laid out its concerns over reduced competition, but AT&T “vigorously contests” those presumptions, arguing the merger is in fact “good for consumers.”

AT&T announced that it planned to acquire T-Mobile from its German parent Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in March. Unsurprisingly, the deal drew attention from the Senate antitrust committee, with Senator Al Franken (D-MN) calling the deal “unfixable.” AT&T countered, claiming T-Mobile wasn’t a significant competitor and didn’t have a compelling portfolio of advanced wireless devices. The merger would effectively improve AT&T’s network without removing competition from the marketplace, the company said.

There was a lot of skepticism about AT&T’s arguments, including on the part of the DoJ. Last week, it filed a lawsuit to block the merger, citing violation of antitrust law. “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the DoJ said in its complaint.

AT&T opposes this view, suggesting that the DoJ has no proof that this is true. In fact, the company’s formal response claims, the deal is actually a boon to consumers.

“The new network will be more than the sum of its parts: as a result of engineering efficiencies enabled by the transaction, the combined capacity of the new firm will be significantly greater than what the two companies could do separately,” according to the response filed on Friday in federal court. “That means increased output, higher quality service, fewer dropped calls, and lower prices to consumers than without the merger. Rather than substantially reducing competition, the combined firm will usher in more intense competition to an already vibrantly competitive market.”

AT&T and the DoJ will have their first courtroom encounter next month in Washington, DC.

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A group of DNS providers and content delivery network (CDN) companies have devised a new extension to the DNS protocol that that aims to more effectively direct users to the closest CDN endpoint. Google, OpenDNS, BitGravity, EdgeCast, and CDNetworks are among the companies participating in the initiative, which they are calling The Global Internet Speedup.

The new DNS protocol extension, which is documented in an IETF draft, specifies a means for including part of the user’s IP address in DNS requests so that the nameserver can more accurately pinpoint the destination that is topologically closest to the user. Ensuring that traffic is directed to CDN endpoints that are close to the user could potentially reduce latency and congestion for high-impact network services like video streaming.

The new protocol extension has already been implemented by OpenDNS and Google’s Public DNS. It works with the CDN services that have signed on to participate in the effort. Google and OpenDNS hope to make the protocol extension an official IETF standard. Other potential adopters—such as Internet ISPs—are free to implement it from the draft specification.

It’s not really clear in practice how much impact this will have on network performance. It’s worth noting that GeoIP lookup technology is already used by some authoritative DNS servers for location-aware routing. The new protocol extension will reportedly address some of the limitations of previous approaches.

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A leaked document from AT&T shows that the company is planning to offer only unlimited and per-message texting plans starting August 21, according to Engadget. The only available plans will be $20 for an individual unlimited messaging plan or $30 for a family unlimited messaging plan; customers without one of those plans will pay 20 per text and 30 per multimedia message.

AT&T quietly axed two of its texting tiers in January of this year already, doing away with the $15/1,500 and $5/200 messages plans. In their place, the company offered one $10/1,000 messages tier, as well as the unlimited plan.

AT&T and other carriers have previously faced backlash over increasing texting prices and recently took measures to control data use on their network. While we’ve pointed out before that text messages do ride carrier networks in a different, higher-priority way from standard data, AT&T still likely makes quite a bit more money from them.

From regular data plans, such as AT&T’s $25 for 2GB data plan, the company pulls in about a millionth of a cent per byte. At that rate, a single 140-byte message would cost about 0.0002, meaning customers would have to send 11 million text messages to make AT&T’s $20 texting plan a money-losing proposition for the telecom giant. The average American teenager—the most avid texting demographic—sends an average of 3,339 texts per month, or 58 worth of regular data charges. The other $19.42, you’re paying for the messages to send and arrive reliably and immediately.

“What we’re seeing is that the vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans,” an AT&T spokesperson tells Ars, confirming the plans and noting that text messaging growth is “stronger than ever.” Only new customers and those resigning contracts will be subject to the new unlimited texting charges.

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Verizon has begun blocking customers who use workarounds to tether their mobile devices without a Verizon-approved tethering plan, Boy Genius Report reported Monday. The move comes days after AT&T announced it will start forcing tetherers onto approved tethering plans, and just as the debate ramps up on whether curtailing tethering apps violates certain rules Verizon agreed to when it licensed a chunk of 700MHz spectrum for 4G use.

BGR noted that one of its writers, who uses a jailbroken Motorola Droid X and an unauthorized app to tether other devices, recently found that trying to navigate the Web on tethered devices redirected her to a Verizon Wireless page detailing rates for the company’s authorized hotspot plans. This is perhaps a more measured response to tethering than AT&T, where customers must choose between discontinuing their tethering ways or getting forcibly moved to a more expensive tethering plan.

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LightSquared has entered into a new agreement with Sprint Nextel that will allow the open access satellite/4G LTE broadband company to accelerate its deployment and stay ahead of the Federal Communication Commission’s 2015 rollout deadline. The deal, which spans 15 years, means that LightSquared’s wholesale customers will be able to offer 4G services to users along with 3G roaming via Sprint’s network once LightSquared goes live with its first 4G markets in 2012.

LightSquared has been working on launching a new nationwide satellite/terrestrial network since roughly a year ago. The goal is to resell service on a wholesale basis to companies planning to offer wireless service directly to customers—LightSquared says it has no interest in dealing with the retail business itself. At the beginning of 2011, the FCC gave the company permission to open its networks to a plethora of mobile broadband partners. At the time, LightSquared outlined its plan to roll out LTE service to at least 100 million Americans by the end of 2012 and 260 million by the end of 2015.

LightSquared’s deal with Sprint, announced on Thursday, means that Sprint will deploy the terrestrial side of the LTE network that hosts L-Band spectrum from LightSquared, and opens the door for future wholesalers to offer services that roam on Sprint’s network. LightSquared says the agreement is key to its rollout schedule, as LightSquared will now complete its 4G LTE deployment more than a year earlier than expected. LightSquared still expects to roll out LTE services in its first US markets during the second half of 2012, though the company emphasized via e-mail that it doesn’t just want to target cities—it wants to deploy in a number of underserved rural markets as well via its agreements with Open Range, Cellular South, and SI Wireless.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Sprint will begin selling LTE service through LightSquared to its own customers, though the possibility is there. Currently, the cell network has the option to purchase 4G LTE capacity from LightSquared thanks to a $4.5 billion purchase credit.

“This agreement gives LightSquared a rapid and cost-effective radio access network build,” LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja said in a statement. “With our next generation satellite already operational and our independent core network build underway, LightSquared is now well positioned to meet the fast-growing market demand for wireless broadband services with its wholesale-only integrated 4G-LTE and satellite network.”

Of course, the agreement still awaits final approval from the FCC, which is still trying to resolve L-Band interference issues with commercial and government GPS services.

“We believe LightSquared, in cooperation with the FCC and adjacent spectrum users, is taking proactive steps to address and resolve these issues in a timely manner,” Sprint president of network operations Steve Elfman said.

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Even though new Verizon LTE phones will use a SIM card to connect to the cellular network, they will not be compatible with other LTE networks like AT&T’s, contrary to recent speculation. While the frequencies each company use bump up against each other and interoperability is technically possible, Verizon has no intent of making its phones able to communicate in wider bands, an idea that was a long shot to begin with.

Both AT&T and Verizon use frequencies in the 700-800MHz band for their LTE networks. However, Verizon’s block is roughly 746-787MHz, while AT&T uses 704-745MHz. Apparently Verizon owns a bit of the 704-710MHz spectrum as well, also known as the “lower B block,” but the chances for collaboration there was slim at best.

Even if both LTE networks could work on one phone, the networks they would drop down to outside the few LTE areas in the country are, well, not the same at all: Verizon uses CDMA for their 2G and 3G, while AT&T uses GSM and HSPA.

So this was a nice glimmer of hope, if a brief one. Maybe one day telecoms will join hands for the greater, signal-roaming good of humanity. We’re not holding our breath, though.

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Amazon intends to keep its position atop the e-reader mountain, announcing Wednesday that it has struck a deal with AT&T to sell its ad-supported Kindle 3G for just $139. If you don’t mind a few ads popping up on your Kindle, you can now get the convenience of free 3G mobile networking for the price of a WiFi-only Kindle.

Amazon has been finding ways to drop the price of its popular Kindle devices since its introduction in 2007. Last year, Amazon slashed the price of its 3G-equipped Kindle 2 from $259 to $189. Last month, it began offering a third-generation Kindle 3G with Special Offers, which saves users $25 in exchange for being shown ads on the device’s screen saver and along the bottom of the home screen. The announcement today shaves another $25 off the original $189 price thanks to AT&T’s sponsorship.

“Kindle 3G is by far the fastest-growing connected device on the AT&T network,” AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said in a statement. “We consistently hear from customers how much they enjoy the freedom of not being tied to a Wi-Fi hotspot and instead being able to download and read new books anytime, anywhere on AT&T’s fast, reliable network.”

Carriers have often subsidized devices like smartphones and netbooks to increase its subscriber base. What’s unusual here is that the Kindle 3G comes with free 3G mobile service for the life of the device. AT&T is essentially kicking in $25 per device upfront to gain more users without increasing its average revenue per user (ARPU).

With its black-and-white-only screen and less-than-ideal Web browsing experience, Kindle devices typically consume far less data than the average smartphone or laptop. Whatever the cost, though, Amazon is footing that bill. While it was assumed that the higher price of the Kindle 3G accounted for whatever Amazon was paying for 3G service, it seems more likely that Amazon is paying AT&T some small amount per activated device on a monthly basis.

Neither Amazon nor AT&T responded to our request for comment on the matter. However, we believe Amazon is banking on eBook sales to cover these ongoing costs, while AT&T is banking on its $25 investment to generate a return over time. Regardless, Kindle 3G buyers can now get their hands on one for a pretty good price.

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Just over a third of American adults own a smartphone of some kind, with many preferring to use it as their primary connection to the Internet. That’s according to a report from the Pew Internet Project, which the organization says is its first standalone measure of smartphone ownership and usage in the US.

Pew surveyed 2,277 US adults between April and May of this year and found that 83 percent have some kind of cell phone. From that group, 42 percent reported owning smartphones, evening out to 35 percent of all adults surveyed. The demographics of that group are hardly surprising, either: smartphones tend to be the most popular among those with a college degree and the financially “well off,” and the highest rate of ownership is among those under the age of 45.

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Why did three of the nation’s largest network providers—Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon—sign on to the music and movie industry’s “copyright alert” system? When we posed that question to Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden, he insisted that Verizon was just being a good citizen. In fact, he sounded surprised that we were even asking the question. Why wouldn’t Verizon want to help fight illegal activity on its network?

Well, here’s how Verizon’s fellow telecom behemoth AT&T put it in a regulatory filing last year:

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The bidding war over the patent portfolio from bankrupt Canadian telecom Nortel’s has ended. Google began the bidding on the collection of 6,000+ patents at $900 million, but Nortel announced today that the wining bid came from a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft, and RIM, which pooled $4.5 billion.

Nortel’s portfolio includes numerous patents on mobile technology, including 3G and 4G wireless networking, optics, voice processing, semiconductors, and more. “The extensive patent portfolio touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including Internet search and social networking,” Nortel said in a statement.

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