Today, Judge Victor Marrero of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York approved the merger of two of the four national mobile wireless companies, T-Mobile and Sprint. The following statement should be attributed to Gigi Sohn:

What is left of American antitrust law when two of the nation’s four mobile wireless carriers are permitted to merge? The evidence in this case demonstrated plainly that the combination of T-Mobile and Sprint would lead to unprecedented concentration in both the national and local mobile wireless markets, resulting in higher prices and less competition. Indeed, evidence at trial showed that this was the result that T-Mobile’s executives desired. If this merger doesn’t “substantially lessen competition,” what merger does?

 In the end, consumers will be the losers, as they have over the past three decades of massive telecommunications and media mergers. Over and over again, consumers are promised enormous benefits and so-called “efficiencies” by merging parties. But what they are left with each time are corporate behemoths who can raise prices at will, use their gatekeeper power to destroy competition and new voices and hijack regulatory and legislative processes. We are already seeing this with the AT&T-Time Warner merger, where promises not to discriminate against rivals or raise prices were broken within months of being approved by a trial judge.

Finally, while the evidence at trial showed that the Justice Department’s scheme to prop up Dish Network would not result in a fourth competitor that would be “timely, likely and sufficient,” Dish should be given every opportunity to succeed. This should include, at a minimum, strict oversight to ensure that T-Mobile doesn’t hinder Dish from competing and eventually building its own network.  

I commend that 14 state attorneys general for their hard work and determination in bringing this case. And I call on Congress to strengthen U.S. antitrust law without delay, as this decision will inevitably open the floodgates to combinations as bad or worse than the one approved today.

Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Foundation Senior Fellow. She was Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013-December 2016 and testified against the T-Mobile Sprint merger before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law in March 2019.  Gigi can be reached for comment at the above email or at 202-253-0876.