T-Mobile / Sprint merger opponents say Fed review is 'cursory'

In response to a court filing by the US government last month, dozens or several states opposing the T-Mobile and Sprint merger this week cited several reasons for dismissing union requests, including federal government approval. Merge as a "cursor test only" of the acceptance conditions.

The state's filing came in response to a "Statement of Interest" filing made last month by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The parties to the litigation, not the DoJ and the FCC, say they are specialist agencies on issues of merger and therefore their decisions should be sealed.

The states opposed the merger and presented two weeks of evidence in December - including T-Mobile, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom (DT) and SoftBank. U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero is presiding over the case in Manhattan and finalizing the case, which can be appealed.

States will fight to prevent it

They filed their opposition after a thorough investigation, arguing that they had a unique and broad understanding of the public interest in the merger. While most antitrust enforcers occur in New York and California-led states, different enforcers come to different decisions about the effects of competition. "But this is the court - not any federal agency or any other promoter - that is the final word," he wrote.

The federal government's claim that states, including Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, do not have a national perspective is also incorrect. Plaintiff states have a broad cross section of the country and comprise 43% of the national population. "Plaintiff states' population is nearly double that of the states that joined the DoJ deal when ratifying the merger," it said in a filing Wednesday. ''

Doze's Revenge Division, led by Macken Delrahim, conducted a 15-month investigation into the transaction and found that if Sprint did not acquire and take care of T-Mobile, it could be retail mobile. The competition in the wireless services market will decrease, but with adequate mitigation, the merger will create "significant potential," according to the agency, bringing customers across the country to Will Banwit.

Rival states say the FCC has accepted the terms of the merger, including the dismantling of Sprint's prepaid assets and the transfer of the license to the Dish Network, but some of those terms are pending and the FCC's expanded investigation is not working. States did. He argued that his research provided a number of important pieces of evidence showing that the merged parties and DISH were not fulfilling their commitments, which was the basis for the DoJ and FCC approvals.

"T-Mobile and Sprint both expressed doubts that the dish would become a serious contender in the national wireless market," states the report, whose research revealed other information not available to DoJ or the FCC to balance the competition she used. Change. And the reality in states ’assessment is that the merger is anticichromatic and must be prevented.

For example, he collected additional documents from DT, including testimony from T-Mobile's controlling shareholder and DT executive, including CEO Timothy Hotjes, who vowed to reduce price competition in the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.

Finding the truth from both sides

Both sides have limited their proposed facts and conclusions to 30 pages on Wednesday. Prior to that, T-Mobile President / COO and CEO-In-Waiting Mike Sievert, at an investor meeting on Tuesday, expressed confidence that the companies would win in court, saying that "the right is on our side" and in the admiration of lawyers Sue.

Companies do not claim "failed company" protection, states acknowledged in the findings of fact filing. However, they feel that Sprint is too weak and will not be a meaningful competitor in the future, so eliminating Sprint as a competitor does not significantly reduce competition.

Alternatively, states may consider Sprint to be financially stable, which, in contrast, may become a national carrier, despite some announcements that make up 93% of the US population.

"The current state of Sprint is more favorable than T-Mobile in 2011," says T-Mobile, when customers are bleeding and have high churn rates and crumbling networks. "T-Mobile can overcome the challenges that Sprint currently faces in 2011. In fact, Sprint has developed plans to spend about $ 5 billion annually over five years to improve its network."

Sprint has many strategic options, including a merger with a cable company or MVNO. In 2018, he also considered merging with Sprint Dish, citing witness testimony that the proposed company could sell Spectrum to Finance while operating the nation's best 5G network.

For dish measurement, states reiterate their position that the market's entry into the dish is "timely, unlikely or inadequate to change the competitive significance of Sprint." Dish is an inexperienced retail TV provider in the retail mobile TV industry. ; They have no retail wireless customers, no wireless networks or stores and no brand associated with the service.

Rationality of contract

For their part, the companies claim that Dish has an extensive team of experienced engineers and entrepreneurs working in its retail mobile wireless business. DISH plans to deploy 50,000 cell sites by 2025 and has identified over 32,000 towers on which its equipment can be quickly deployed; It has master contracts with the owners of those towers. Dish is also available on all cell sites - about 35,000 - and these are the new T-Mobile demos.

Due to the lack of legacy Internet Technologies to support, Dish's network costs are relatively low. If Dish does not honor its commitments to the FCC and the DOJ, it will incur substantial fines, lose billions of dollars in spectrum and may be placed in contempt of court. "While there are no penalties for Dish for building a 5G network," Dish has a strong profit incentive.

He noted that the independent sprint would be significantly less competitive. Sprint has been losing Sprint-branded phone customers for the past few years, and its postpaid churn more than doubled to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. He argued that without the merger, Sprint would most likely become a regional network operator.

MVNOs are independent competitors and cable companies such as Comcast, Charter Communications and Altis Competition. This transaction will cause customers to pay a lower price for high-quality network services, since the new T-Mobile network will have significantly higher capacity than the network's capacity, which the company can operate on an independent basis. This gives the new company the ability and incentive to keep up with its disruptive “un-carry”