US mobile operators Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA have asked the FCC to halt its review of two spectrum acquisitions from cable companies by their rival Verizon Wireless until more information has been disclosed. Sprint and T-Mobile were among a group…
US mobile operators Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA have asked the FCC to halt its review of two spectrum acquisitions from cable companies by their rival Verizon Wireless until more information has been disclosed.
Sprint and T-Mobile were among a group of organisations that signed a letter sent to the regulator.
According to this letter, Verizon Wireless and the cablecos had redacted extensive parts of the application concerning pricing, compensation and marketing.
The signatories of the letter said that this “made it impossible to understand the full ramifications of the documents or to evaluate their relationship to and effect upon the proposed transactions”.
Other signatories to the letter to the FCC were the satellite TV operator DIRECTV, the Rural Telecommunications Group and six other trade associations or pressure groups.
The application relates to two deals for Verizon to acquire advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum, which were announced in December.
The first would see Verizon paying US$3.6bn to acquire 122 AWS licences from SpectrumCo, a JV made up of three major US cablecos: Bright House Networks, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
The second one would involve Verizon spending US$315m to buy 20MHz of AWS spectrum from another cableco, Cox Communications.
The deals have brought particular scrutiny, not only because of the large amount of spectrum being acquired but also because they involve agreements for Verizon Wireless and the cablecos to sell each other’s services.
In a separate filing in February, T-Mobile said that the marketing and joint venture agreements accompanying the spectrum deals would “require further investigation to determine whether any illicit market divisions have been negotiated”.
