T-Mobile/UScellular Foes Explain Opposition to FCC Staff
Opponents of T-Mobile’s proposed buy of wireless assets from UScellular met with FCC staff to explain their concerns. The groups at the meeting were the Rural Wireless Association, EchoStar, Communications Workers of America, Public Knowledge, New America’s Open Technology Institute, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Computer & Communications Industry Association. They met with staff from the Wireless Bureau and the offices of Economics and Analytics and General Counsel, according to a filing posted Friday in docket 24-286.
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T-Mobile and UScellular announced the deal in May, which is valued at about $4.4 billion, including $2 billion in assumed debt (see 2405280047). Industry sources said they have heard relatively little from the FCC on the transaction since the start of the Trump administration.
RWA warned of higher prices for consumers and a decrease in wireless competition. It also “discussed its concern that the proposed transaction will result in loss of coverage for UScellular subscribers who may not be served by the combined wireless network due to the shutdown of cell sites that cannot be supported without” USF. EchoStar warned of “the detrimental impact the proposed transaction will have on competition, especially for new market entrants.”
“The proposed merger will further entrench and extend T-Mobile’s dominant position in many local labor markets for retail wireless workers,” CWA said. The union “reiterated that the burden is on the applicants to show how the transaction will enhance competition in both upstream labor markets" and "downstream consumer markets.”