The way to Ajit Pai’s heart, apparently, is through rural broadband.

The Federal Communications Commission chairman, an eager deregulator who leads the panel’s Republican majority, announced Monday morning that T-Mobile and Sprint have promised even greater public benefits if their merger is allowed to proceed. Those steps were enough to satisfy Pai, which probably means the merger won’t be blocked by the FCC — the commission’s Republicans have moved in sync with Pai.

One of Pai’s priorities as chairman has been to increase the availability of broadband in rural areas, such as sparsely populated Parsons, Kan., where he grew up. T-Mobile and Sprint have promised to extend 5G service to 85% of the population of rural America within three years, and 90% within six years.

Such promises aside, it was hard to imagine Pai not saying yes to this merger. Although Republicans have led some of the country’s most important antitrust fights — the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice broke up Ma Bell, for example — GOP administrations have tended to look the other way when industries consolidate.

And that’s problematic. Letting T-Mobile absorb Sprint would reduce the number of national network builders from four to three, and when that sort of shrinkage has happened in other countries, it has led to higher prices and less innovation. The companies, which have promised not to raise prices for three years, argue that the merger will enable them to upgrade to 5G faster, but that’s the sort of assertion that merger-seekers always make. It was, in fact, what would-be merger partners AT&T and T-Mobile asserted eight years ago, when the next-generation-network-du-jour was 4G. The merger was denied, and here we are with four robust 4G networks instead of three.

More at Los Angeles Times.