BY LAISHI ZHOU

ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

AT&T has hung up its plans to acquire T-Mobile, and will have to pay a $4 billion break-up fee. CNET TV has the details.

“AT&T was forced to withdraw its $39 billion takeover bid, after admitting it cannot overcome strong opposition from the justice department and the Federal Communications Commission. Both agencies said the merger between the second and fourth largest wireless companies would stifle competition. The deal’s been in the works since March.”

On top of paying the $4 billion break-up fee, which will go to Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s owners, AT&T will also have to set up a roaming agreement with the network. SlashGear explains.

“‘This is one of the highest payments ever agreed between two companies for the termination of a purchase agreement[,]’ Deutsche Telekom said in a statement about the break-up fee. … Meanwhile the roaming agreements will help fill in the gaps in existing … coverage, taking T-Mobile USA’s served population to 280m, a 50m increase ...”

But the bad news for AT&T seems to be good news for wireless customers and T-Mobile’s workers. Seattle’s KIRO-TV has more.

Customer: I just heard this on the news that they are not gonna be merging with AT&T.
Reporter: What do you think?
Customer: I think it’s good, because we keep it here local.

And at T-Mobile headquarters, the merger also put 3,000 local jobs at risk.
Customer: I’ve got friends who work at T-Mobile, and another thing we worried about was their jobs. And I guess maybe, hopefully, they are not going to have to worry anymore about that.

And the Wall Street Journal reports that, even though Deutsche Telekom has $4 billion coming its way, it is still looking for another buyer for T-Mobile.

“T-Mobile’s 33 million customers ... still face an uncertain future. … Deutsche Telekom will still explore a sale or merger of T-Mobile, since maintaining T-Mobile as a stand-alone carrier isn’t seen as an economically viable option in the long term, people familiar with the matter said.”

And an expert from an equity research company tells CNBC that, yes -- T-Mobile faces tough times.

“They’ve been losing customers in recent quarters. They’ve already lost about a million customers year to date. They don’t have their own 4G network today. To get one, they would have to invest lots of money here.”