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DOJ to approve T-Mobile/Sprint merger despite 13 states trying to block it
The Justice Department plans to approve the T-Mobile/Sprint merger as part of a settlement involving the sale of spectrum licenses, wholesale access, and a prepaid wireless business to Dish Network, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
"The companies have spent weeks negotiating with antitrust enforcers and each other over the sale of assets to Dish to satisfy concerns that the more than $26 billion merger of the No. 3 and No. 4 wireless carriers by subscribers would hurt competition," the Journal wrote, citing people familiar with the matter.
As a result of those negotiations, the DOJ is "poised to approve" the merger and could announce a settlement with T-Mobile and Sprint "as soon as this week, but the timing remains uncertain," the Journal wrote.
Even if the DOJ approves the merger, T-Mobile and Sprint will still have to defend it in court because of a lawsuit filed against them by 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Would you rather they each fail and get gobbled up by AT&T and Verizon, or join forces to have a chance to compete against them... and join in a battle against the the consumer?
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Judge approves $26 billion merger of T-Mobile and Sprint:
Shares of Sprint soared Tuesday after a U.S. District judge ruled in favor of its $26 billion deal to merge with T-Mobile.
The stock was up 75% Tuesday morning. It had risen after hours Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported the judge was expected to rule in favor of the deal. Shares of T-Mobile were up 10%.
The ruling clears one of the final hurdles for the deal, which still can't close until the California Public Utilities Commission approves the transaction. Tuesday's ruling also culminates a years-long courtship between Sprint and T-Mobile, which have made multiple attempts over the years to merge, only to abandon their plans fearing regulatory scrutiny.
Attorneys general from New York, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and D.C. originally brought the lawsuit to block the deal following approval from the Justice Department of Federal Communications Commission. The states had argued that combining the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. carriers would limit competition and result in higher prices for consumers. The companies had argued their merger would help them compete against top players AT&T and Verizon and advance efforts to build a nationwide 5G network.
In his decision filed Tuesday, Judge Victor Marrero wrote, "The resulting stalemate leaves the Court lacking sufficiently impartial and objective ground on which to rely in basing a sound forecast of the likely competitive effects of a merger."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 25 2019, @11:12PM
very legal
Tired of "winning" yet?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 25 2019, @11:25PM (12 children)
Or, maybe a system could be found where there was actual competition, instead of the incumbents purchasing the rules they want through their tame regulators?
No, that sounds too hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @12:01AM (1 child)
Pretty much, if Sprint and T-Mobile can't compete, the answer is to break AT&T and Verizon up. 4 carriers is already too few. Moving to a system where there's only 3 is just going to cause even more problems. As it stands, the customers have limited options if they don't like the terms of the carrier they're with as they tend to have the same terms on an awful lot of their agreements.
Really, we need to go back to a time when antitrust laws were being enforced. There should be no more buying up all the competition until the customer has no choice but to buy your service or none at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @08:37PM
T-Mobile is fine. Sprint on the other hand is in big fucking trouble. They picked the wrong tech in 2005 and 1995 and are on the wrong side of the FCC auctions. Get away from a highway and it has terrible coverage.
This is their problem summed up nicely customer wise. A guy I know had 6 lines with them last week. Today he has 6 lines with verizon and half the cost. The customer reps would not work with him and were just happy to keep charging him 60 extra dollars a month for 3 phones that were paid off 2 years ago. Now he has 6 new shiny iPhones and half the cost per month... He went with the highest price carrier too! He spent nearly 10 hours on different customer reps to just get the next bill lowered. No paybacks or anything. He then spent a couple of hours getting a new set of phones in the lobby of a sprint store. They did nothing to help/stop him. Now verizon is no shining example of justice and virtue. But that shows why sprint is not doing very well. They are not long for this world.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @12:11AM (9 children)
t-mobile claims the motivation for the merger is that they need the spectrum licenses to compete.
How about we do away with licensing spectrum to the highest bidder, and force all the telcos to share spectrum? That would also allow mom & pop rural telco to operate, and serve those folks that att, verizon, et al will never bother with since they can't make unseemly profit from them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday July 26 2019, @01:19AM (2 children)
I. Love. You!
Yes!
Open and spread competition instead of reducing it! Brilliant, huh!?
Why can't the politicians see that? Oh...right. All they can see is the lobbyists money. Reducing competition is good for executives, shareholders and the rich...who cares about what is right.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 26 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)
Yeah, unfortunately the "Mom and Pop" ISP's that might spring up won't be able to supply the levels of "campaign contributions" that the ruling class have become so fond of.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @06:30PM
so we all know what the problem is, but they know we know. they just don't care because we never do anything about it. they only respect power. the people need to assert theirs for things to change.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 26 2019, @04:45AM (5 children)
Force them to share the spectrum how? I'm all for open solutions where the government manages a complex system that's vulnerable to the tragedy of the commons for the benefit of its citizens rather than trying to capitalismify it by creating de jure monopolies. But such plans often hinge critically on a coherent strategy of achieving that end, not just saying "let's do it".
How can you regulate the spectrum in a sharable way? Minimizing the following: incentive to pollute airways, wasted bandwidth. Maximizing the following: access, infrastructure.
That's a hard problem, and you need a strategy, not a handwave.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 26 2019, @06:41AM (1 child)
Bandwidth that's used isn't wasted. If people use the bandwidth it's being used. It may be wasted to a monopolistic corporation that wants to monopolize it but it's useful to those using it.
As far as tragedy of the commons, that's just a fake term that monopolists made up to justify monopolizing bandwidth in favor of corporate interests. That was never really a problem other than the fact that big corporations pretend that it was and government goes with it.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 26 2019, @02:41PM
It's reasonable to say that the supposed tragedy of the commons that the phenomenon was named for is a fake thing that basically represented 18th century propaganda, but the conceptual abstract version of it is real as hell in cases like climate change. The net effect of sensible individual incentives can be deleterious to all.
And we've seen unregulated broadcasting become an arms race hell of trying to outpower your competitors and drown out their signal in your noise in history once already. Hell, home wifi seems a bit like that now.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Friday July 26 2019, @07:01AM (2 children)
Topic on hand: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
In honor of the men who set foot on the moon 50 years ago, it can be done. Anything we (as a species) put our minds to can be resolved, improved and implemented. Whether we put our collective minds to it is another story. Considering the economic/political climate of the last 40 years...well, I don't realistically see it being even considered very soon. And even so, we all know the old song-and-dance: "...absolute power corrupts absolutely." Have a nice day!
Off-topic: I loved CAPITALISMIFY!
Pedant: it's du jour. Then again, yr username says it all! :D I KID! I KID!!
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 26 2019, @02:43PM (1 child)
Du jour is french for "of the day." De jure is latin for "in a purely legal sense." It is a contrast term to de facto, meaning "in reality."
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Friday July 26 2019, @03:25PM
Mod me -1 D'oh!
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday July 26 2019, @02:16PM
Dear Santa:
No company should be allowed to be BOTH an ISP and a provider of streaming content.
Each ISP should be a provider of Big Dumb Pipes. Full Stop. No snooping, inspecting packets, manipulating the contents of connections, playing games with DNS, etc. Just be the biggest, most bestest Big Dumb Pipes there ever was.
Compete on price performance. Your big dumb pipes would be better and/or cheaper than your competitor.
It is a time honored way of doing business. Provide what customers actually want (even if they don't know what they want) and do it well and at a good price. A price where you can profit while building and maintaining you big dumb pipes. Just like being the best bakery, footwear, hairdresser, or other business.
What an idea!
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