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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the hot-pink-plus-yellow-equals-??? dept.

FCC formally approves the T-Mobile-Sprint merger

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formally approved the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. The decision comes after a drawn-out, and at times contentious, review of T-Mobile's $26.5 billion bid to merge with Sprint.

The FCC believes the deal will close the digital divide and advance 5G in the US. T-Mobile and Sprint have committed to deploying 5G service to cover 97 percent of Americans within three years. They've also pledged to provide 90 percent of Americans with access to mobile service with speeds of at least 100 Mbps within six years. The FCC's approval is conditional on those promises, and the parties could be fined over $2 billion if they don't meet those goals.


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Judge Approves $26 Billion Merger of T-Mobile and Sprint 22 comments

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."

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:58AM (5 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:58AM (#916633) Journal

    The FCC believes the deal will close the digital divide and advance 5G in the US.

    Ajit Pai believes no such thing. He does know that his masters will make a lot of money with the merger, so the merger gets his rubber stamp.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:50AM

      by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:50AM (#916649) Journal

      The right parts finally got greased. Therefore this is now legally approved. Thank you for your valuable input into this deliberation of a very important subject.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:52AM (3 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:52AM (#916652) Homepage
      +1

      Have you heard any consumer demands for 5G at all where you are, as I certainly haven't here. I hear complaints about the well-established infrastructures that can penetrate walls and reach for miles (metric ones, obviously), but that can be achieved at very little cost just by organically improving the existing infra, with no need for any customer-side upgrades (unless they're still using phones that you can "hold incorrectly").

      When their 4G connections are only giving them jerky vids at 3MB/s, 5G is not the solution, 5G is just another thing that will fallback onto crappy 3G.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:08AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:08AM (#916699)

        5G uses a different set of frequencies than 4G. This means there will need to be more towers for 5G than 4G needs. This means they can locate your position with greater accuracy using 5G than with 4G.

        It's not consumer demands that are being met.

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 06 2019, @08:06AM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday November 06 2019, @08:06AM (#916745) Homepage
          Location with 4G was already possible to within 5-10m. I used to work for a company called Cambridge Positioning Systems, back in the 90s when it was only 3G, and they'd mastered that already. That was in the days before GPS on every phone (as mandated by the FCC, for tha chiiiildrun), so did actually make sense.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by legont on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:21AM

        by legont (4179) on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:21AM (#916703)

        I am a lucky one who already has 100 from them and in the woods, mind you. My problem is that the plan is drained in a few minutes and then speed drops to a crawl.

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:51AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:51AM (#916651)

    After the others all merged up, why not this too? The result won't even be the biggest.

    If we should reject this, we also need to break up the bigger companies. This one is nothing.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:58AM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:58AM (#916653) Homepage
      But you started this in 1982: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
      It's just that you only addresses that one single case and then completely forgot about why you had done it almost immediately afterwards.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:35AM (#916669)

        Breaking up AT&T was a stupid move because we the people love monopoly. Almost every MVNO in America is owned by América Móvil anyway which is reseller of every carrier. Why bother having four or three mobile carriers when we only need one.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:03AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:03AM (#916654)

    I for one welcome the merger of the German carrier (T-Mobile) and the Japanese carrier (Sprint). Now all we need is for All-American AT&T to merge with Verizon again and call itself Allied Mobile. I fully expect a free Trumpfone.

    Speaking of free, T-Mobile is giving away free mobile hotspots loaded with free data to anyone who isn't already a customer. So I asked about a mobile hotspot at a Sprint store and they wanted to charge me $150 for one even though I'm not a Sprint customer. I wonder if Axis Mobile will be generous or stingy after the merger.

    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:31AM (#916665) Journal

      German Japanese American... Now there's a real shotgun wedding...

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:40AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:40AM (#916674)

        Inevitable merger of Axis Mobile with Allied Mobile will be a nuclear wedding.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:19AM (#916722)

      acme mobile. they could dredge up an old road runner cartoon or two for context.

  • (Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:05AM (1 child)

    by DrkShadow (1404) on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:05AM (#916656)

    have committed to deploying 5G service to cover 97 percent of Americans within three years.

    Has this standard even finished standardization yet? Maybe it has..

    They've also pledged to provide 90 percent of Americans with access to mobile service with speeds of at least 100 Mbps within six years.

    Isn't 5G supposed to be so much more than 100Mbit connectivity? How are they providing so much more to so many more people, and then saying that they'll provide a lesser service to fewer people in twice the timeframe? Oh. Right. 5G is just a marketing item, not a standard. Even if it were a standard, it has super-slow modes of operation comparable to Yesterday's technology.

    The FCC's approval is conditional on those promises, and the parties could be fined over $2 billion if they don't meet those goals.

    I thought I heard something about this being taken to court! In New York! Oh, that was Charter? Yeah, just another telecom over-promising, under-delivering, because the profits outweigh the costs. Not (example shows) that they'll have to pay the costs.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:33AM (#916666)

      "5G" is really "4.1G". But that didn't stop AT&T from pretending to have it, and then everyone else had to pretend too, to keep up. Now the imaginary technology has new imaginary benefits! Everyone wins!

  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:14AM (2 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:14AM (#916659)

    After all this time I still can't grasp why every person need all this mobile shit. Hurray, more clips of family guy and pictures of cats. More stupid alerts about dumb little things that idiots have been conditioned to treat as life and death. Put up with big companies tracking everything you do, but oh, Perter Griffin just farted, thats funny. Will any of this result in actual phone calls where people don't sound like robots trying to fuck my ear? Nah, didn't think so.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:25AM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:25AM (#916662)

      I don't think it has much to do with what customers want.

      Where I live, one of the mobile companies is showing regular ads on TV about how "5G will enable new technologies, like driverless cars" which is obvious bullshit, but they're happy to lie to clueless users.

      What I am pretty sure is going to happen is that they (in cahoots with their opposition) will decide 5G is too expensive to roll out, so the taxpayer is going to have to pay for it, because "jobs" or whatever.

      What I hope happens is that when they do that, we have a Prime Minister smart enough to do what the the incumbent did in 2008 when the banks came looking for a bailout, and start the negotiations by asking for a controlling shareholding.

      Our banks stopped asking for taxpayer money after that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:26AM (#916663)

      Wasting my evening posting dumb shit on SoylentNews through a fucking mobile device. Hell YEAH!

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