T-Mobile and Sprint Are Almost One. Hooray?
The companies tapped into 5G fever to win the federal government's support for their merger, despite unresolved antitrust issues.
The wireless merger has been years in the making, and still isn’t a done deal yet.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/BloombergThe government body that long posed the biggest obstacle to the union of T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. because of the deal’s glaring antitrust issues has now given its blessing. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice approved the controversial $59 billion merger, capping a rather unconventional regulatory review process with a decision that will utterly transform the U.S. wireless market.
The deal may alter how wireless-plan prices are set in the industry, where Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. are currently the only other national carriers. As part of the flimsy concessions meant to offset the negative effects, T-Mobile agreed to sell Sprint’s Boost and Virgin pay-as-you-go wireless businesses and some airwaves to Dish Network Corp., a satellite-TV company. Makan Delrahim, the DOJ’s top antitrust enforcer, is seeking to synthetically create a new fourth competitor through Dish, which will have access to T-Mobile’s wireless network for seven years while it builds its own. But Dish is inexperienced in this business, so it has a long way to go and much work to do before it can disrupt the market the same way that competition between T-Mobile and Sprint has for the last few years.