By a 3-2 party line vote, the FCC approved the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint subject to a handful of mostly behavioral conditions. In late May, the Chairman and his two Republican colleagues announced their intention to approve the merger prior to the circulation of  a draft order.

The following statement should be attributed to Gigi Sohn:

Today’s decision is the culmination of one of the most irregular and opaque processes in FCC history. The FCC majority prejudged the merits of this merger two months before the Justice Department found the combination of T-Mobile and Sprint to be anticompetitive and required the creation of a new fourth competitor to pass legal muster. Despite this radical change in the merger, Chairman Pai has refused to put the new arrangement out for public comment. 

The evidence is clear, and the Justice Department agreed, that the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint will raise prices and reduce competition to the detriment of consumers. The companies’ promises on 5G, rural buildout and in-home broadband are speculative, not specific to the merger and are completely unenforceable. And although it is beside the point for this FCC, the creation of a Mobile Frankenstein to replace Sprint puts the risk of failure squarely on the backs of American consumers. 

Thankfully, this merger is far from a done deal.  A group of 17 State Attorneys General representing more than half of the US population have sued to block the merger and the trial will start in December. Once again, the states are standing up for consumers when the federal government has refused to do so.

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.