Two of the nation’s four mobile wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint, just announced their intention to merge.  The following statement should be attributed to Gigi Sohn:

Consumers will be the losers if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge.  Both companies have been feisty competitors to the two biggest national mobile wireless carriers, Verizon and AT&T, introducing consumer friendly pricing and data plans that have pushed the big two to lower their prices and expand their data offerings. This combination will not only result in less choice for consumers, it will provide greater incentive for the 3 remaining companies to act in concert.

No one should be fooled by claims that the market for mobile wireless phone and data services has changed. Cable company mobile services are nascent and are only available to each company’s cable customers.  Moreover, cable companies don’t own mobile wireless networks, they merely resell capacity from incumbent carriers.  Dish Network controls a lot of spectrum, but has ZERO mobile wireless customers.  Nor is there a need for the companies to merge to invest in infrastructure for new 5G wireless services.  Both companies are already building that infrastructure, and have significant resources to continue to do so.

There is not one good reason for the Department of Justice or the FCC to permit the mobile wireless market to shrink from 4 to 3. This deal must be blocked.

Gigi Sohn is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy  and a Mozilla Fellow. She was Counselor to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from November 2013-December 2016. Gigi can be reached for comment at the above email address or at 202-253-0876. More on Gigi can be found at gigisohn.com.