Image: Win McNamee
“Empty promises will not make this transaction
a good deal for American workers and
consumers,” he said.
Sprint and T-Mobile have been talking about
their 5G plans even before proposing their
combination, so it’ll be tough to convince
the Justice Department that the 5G buildout
depends on it, said Amanda Wait, a partner at
Norton Rose Fulbright and former Federal Trade
Commission lawyer.
And even then, the Justice Department has to
decide if those benefits are greater than any
harms to consumer.
Justice Department spokesman Jeremy Edwards
declined to comment.
Sprint, which is based in Overland Park, Kansas,
and T-Mobile, based in Bellevue, Washington,
argue that the combination will lead to better
5G service. They have made promises before
to create U.S. jobs and build a home-internet
business to compete with cable companies as
well as Verizon and AT&T. They’ve also promised
not to raise prices for three years.
The Obama administration rebuffed the
companies’ earlier effort to merge, as well as an
attempted deal between AT&T and T-Mobile,
on concerns that such deals would hurt
competition in the wireless industry.
Shares of T-Mobile rose $2.93, or almost 4%, to
$78.29, while Sprint’s stock soared 19% to $7.34.
Shares of Verizon and AT&T also rose.