CEO John Legere and others from T-Mobile argued for the company’s buy of Sprint in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-197. The executives said the company’s “world-leading 5G network will cover the country and deliver transformative services to all Americans, including those on prepaid and Lifeline plans.” They said "the massive capacity and lower costs of the network will result in lower prices for consumers and opportunities for MVNOs.” An accompanying presentation said without the transaction, in 2024, T-Mobile’s network will be “broad and thin,” Sprint’s “deep but narrow.” Together, the network will be “broad and deep.” The 4Competition Coalition, meanwhile, opposed the transaction in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “This merger would consolidate the nation’s wireless market from four to just three carriers, lead to price increases for virtually all wireless customers, substantially raise wholesale rates, and cause significant job losses -- all while failing to deliver the promised benefits of accelerated 5G deployment or expanded rural coverage,” the group said. Representatives of the Communications Workers of America, Consumer Reports, Dish Network, Incompas, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Next Century Cities and Writers Guild of America West attended. Legere blogged Wednesday that the new T-Mobile will be good for business customers, who haven’t benefited from changes in wireless pricing. “Two-year service contracts, bill shock, data buckets, overage penalties, and so many more punitive practices” are still common, Legere said. “Millions of businesses are still on a two-year service contract … and even more are still on limited data buckets. Worse, the Carriers’ pricing for businesses is still a secret, so you have no idea if you’re getting a good deal or getting screwed (pro tip: you’re probably getting screwed).”

The Wireless Communications Association urged the FCC to adopt policies for the 2.5 GHz band “rationalizing” educational broadband service geographic service areas to county boundaries, meeting with Aaron Goldberger, aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. Taking the step “without regard to the size of the current overlap” is “a practical solution to the limitations of the Commission’s Universal Licensing System,” WCA said, posted Tuesday in docket 18-120. “This approach will provide substantial benefits to the public, as it will allow for the rapid introduction of broadband service in underserved areas. Unlike alternative proposals, this approach also is most likely to result in auctioning of the EBS white space without the years of delay that otherwise would be required to identify the specific geographic areas available at auction.”

The FCC isn’t falling short on 5G security (see 1905060057), emailed Mark Jamison, University of Florida professor and a member of the Trump FCC transition landing team. “The FCC should -- and does -- have 5G security as a high priority,” Jamison said. “But that does not mean that it should grab every opportunity to devote more resources to the issue. Security is a central mission of many other federal agencies. The FCC should always be supportive and informed of what these agencies do, but not at the cost of failing in its unique responsibilities, such as paving the way for 5G deployment.”

Smartphone users report a willingness to pay a 20 percent premium for 5G, and half of early adopters would pay as much as 32 percent more, Ericsson ConsumerLab reported: “One in five smartphone users’ data consumption could reach more than 200GB per month on a 5G device by 2025.” The lab said current use patterns can’t be used to predict future 5G demand. The report is based 35,000 interviews with smartphone users, 15-69, in 22 countries. “Such is the uncertainty that some believe 4G technology is already more than capable of doing everything consumers demand,” the gearmaker said: “This has led analysts and commentators to warn that consumers are unlikely to pay a premium to access a service they don't need. These presumptions seem to have rubbed off on operators.”

Home builders care about Wi-Fi “because home buyers want connected homes,” representatives of Leading Builders of America said in a meeting with Chief Julius Knapp and others from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. The focus was the 6 GHz band, which the agency is examining allocating for unlicensed use, said the group, which earlier commented (see 1902150030) in docket 18-295. “Just as granite countertops went from optional to standard due to demand, the same thing is happening to wifi-enabled homes,” the group said Friday.

Sprint will become the last of the four national wireless carriers to report Q1 results Tuesday. T-Mobile, which wants to buy Sprint, reported April 25 (see 1904250065). A likely focus is on subscriber losses, with analysts projecting net post-paid phone losses of 50,000, industry lawyers said. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Sprint told regulators a deal offering potential subscribers free cellphone lines made the carrier look healthier than it really is. Sprint didn’t comment. T-Mobile and Sprint reported on a meeting with the FCC transaction team reviewing the deal, to discuss T-Mobile’s in-home broadband service. By 2024, the new T-Mobile will “offer an attractively priced high-speed broadband option to millions of households with no access to or choice of broadband service today addressing a critical need,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197. The representatives said the New T-Mobile network "will enable the merged company to offer in-home service in geographic areas where the network has capacity beyond that required to support mobile wireless customers.” Among those representing the companies was economist and ex-Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. New Street’s Blair Levin wrote investors Monday that nothing in recent FCC filings by T-Mobile and Sprint and opponents of the deal discuss conditions, which is likely a negative. “The discussion by the companies with the Chairman’s staff was on 5G deployments and in-home broadband competition,” Levin wrote: “Neither of these issues is likely to be relevant to the DOJ’s determination but both are arguably relevant to the FCC ‘public interest’ determination.”

A recent T-Mobile and Sprint’s California pledge to build a call center “was never mentioned in their application, testimony, or at evidentiary hearings,” protested the California Public Utilities Commission's Public Advocates Office. The carriers brought it up in an April 26 opening brief and an April 23 ex parte meeting with Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves about their under-review merger, said the office in a Thursday motion at the CPUC to strike this from the record. “Allowing the Joint Applicants to include references to this alleged call center in their Opening Brief prejudices the Public Advocates Office because there was no notice or opportunity to question the factual details of the commitment or the veracity of the claim,” the office said. “When did Joint Applicants decide to make the commitment to build this call center? When will the call center be built? How many people will it employ?” Friday, the carriers didn’t comment.

The 5G Automotive Association urged FCC action on the group's proposed waiver to deploy cellular vehicle-to-everything technology (C-V2X) in the upper 20 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band (see 1902270041). “As part of this momentum, Ford Motor Company has committed to deploy C-V2X in all of its new vehicles in the United States beginning in 2022,” the group told Commissioner Brendan Carr and an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-357. It said granting 5GAA’s request “would help remove the most significant regulatory roadblock that stands in the way of Ford and other stakeholders deploying this technology and -- in doing so -- dramatically improving safety on America’s roads.”

T-Mobile has stopped selling real-time location information to data aggregators. Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sought such from top carriers. (see 1905010167). As of Feb. 8, the company “terminated all service provider access to location data under the program, and T-Mobile’s location based services contracts with the Location Aggregators officially ended on March 9,” a spokesperson emailed.

With the lines between traditional wireless carriers and cable ISPs blurring, it will take the combined spectrum of T-Mobile and Sprint to force the rest of the wireless industry, including cable, to stay competitive to New T-Mobile's value, customer service and network quality, CEO John Legere blogged Thursday. "The U.S. has long needed a third scaled competitor to challenge AT&T and Verizon [and] no one thinks that should be Big Cable -- except maybe Big Cable!" he said, saying New T-Mobile would have the finances and scale "to be that disruptive rival that the U.S. market so badly needs." He said rival wireless and cable competitors now bring higher pricing, spotty coverage "tepid 5G plans and an expanding Digital Divide with bad bundled services galore." T-Mobile/Sprint is seen by some as facing tough head winds to regulatory approval (see 1904170027).