T-Mobile/UScellular Opponents Meet With Carr Aide
Opponents of T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless assets from UScellular, including spectrum, met with Arpan Sura, an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, about their application for review of the transaction (see 2507310041). Representatives of the Rural Wireless Association, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Communications Workers of America attended, according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 24-286. The transaction was approved by the Wireless Bureau and the Office of International Affairs without a commissioner vote.
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“Delegating the matter to the Bureaus was an error of law given that the issues addressed in the Order approving the transaction at issue are neither minor nor routine nor settled in nature,” the groups said. They “pointed to the clear limitations in the delegations of authority to staff and that, in particular, the Bureaus are precluded from acting on novel issues not governed by Commission precedent.” The transaction “presented novel issues, including whether the Bureaus can substitute an unprecedented ‘competitive constraint’ standard for the established ‘effective competition’ standard to justify finding that the existence of cable mobile virtual network operators ... is sufficient to justify the requisite public interest finding,” the filing said.