Earlier this week, FCC chair Ajit Pai announced that he would soon be asking his fellow commissioners to approve the merger of two of the four nationwide wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint. After a year of deliberation, including thousands of pages of legal and economic filings by proponents and opponents and three congressional hearings, Pai has now decided that a handful of promises, made just days ago by the merging parties, puts this $26 billion transaction in the public interest. And it appears that at least two of his fellow commissioners agree with him.

But these promises are speculative, unsubstantiated, and entirely unenforceable. For example, T-Mobile and Sprint commit to deploying a new 5G network that would cover 97 percent of Americans within three years of the closing of the deal, and 99 percent of Americans within six years. They further promise that 85 percent of rural Americans will have access to those networks within three years, and 90 percent will be covered within six years. But nothing in T-Mobile’s filings prove that they can meet these goals, and much like the broken promises of other big broadband, telephone, and cable providers, they are wildly optimistic.

Given that at a minimum 6 percent of all Americans and nearly 25 percent of rural residents don’t have either fixed or mobile broadband coverage today, these numbers appear to be nothing more than an enticement for the Trump FCC to declare a fake victory in the so-called race to 5G.

More at Wired.