Justice Department Approves Merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint
26 Julio 2019 - 11:00AM
Noticias Dow Jones
By Drew FitzGerald and Sarah Krouse
The Justice Department approved T-Mobile US Inc.'s merger with
Sprint Corp. after the companies agreed to create a new wireless
carrier by selling assets to satellite-TV provider Dish Network
Corp.
The landmark antitrust agreement seeks to address concerns that
the combination of T-Mobile, the nation's No. 3 carrier by
subscribers, and No. 4 Sprint will drive up prices for consumers.
It would leave more than 95% of American cellphone customers with
the top three U.S. operators.
A deal brokered by the Justice Department will require Dish,
which has been sitting on valuable airwaves, to build a 5G network
for cellphone customers. To help it get started, T-Mobile will sell
Sprint's prepaid brands to Dish and give access to the combined
carrier's network for seven years.
"With this merger and accompanying divestiture, we are expanding
output significantly by ensuring large amounts of currently unused
or underused spectrum are made available to American consumers in
the form of high quality 5G networks," said Makan Delrahim, the
Justice Department's antitrust chief.
Critics of the arrangement include a group of state attorneys
general that broke with the Justice Department and have filed an
antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the more than $26 billion
merger. Five states that weren't part of the lawsuit joined the
federal government in the settlement announced Friday.
"Why scramble so much to create a fourth competitor when you
already have one?" said Samuel Weinstein, an assistant law
professor at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who
worked previously in the Justice Department's antitrust unit.
The deal gives Dish, a satellite-TV provider, about 9 million
Sprint prepaid cellphone customers and additional wireless
spectrum. Those subscribers represent about a fifth of Sprint's
customer base.
T-Mobile and Sprint must also give Dish access to at least
20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations. The new
T-Mobile must provide "robust access" to its network, the Justice
Department said.
The union of T-Mobile and Sprint, years in the making, would
create a wireless company with more than 80 million U.S. customers,
closing the gap with Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.,
which each have roughly 100 million wireless customers. It also
would fulfill a long-held goal of Japan's SoftBank Group Corp.,
which owns most of Sprint, and Deutsche Telekom AG, which controls
T-Mobile.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Sarah
Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 26, 2019 11:45 ET (15:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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