Critics of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile US have won a partial victory in their opposition against the deal by convincing the FCC to link its investigation with the review of AT&T’s spectrum deal with Qualcomm. In a letter to AT&T and Qualcomm,…
Critics of AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile US have won a partial victory in their opposition against the deal by convincing the FCC to link its investigation with the review of AT&T’s spectrum deal with Qualcomm.
In a letter to AT&T and Qualcomm, the US telecoms regulator said it had considered the question if the T-Mobile deal and the US$ 2bn acquisition of spectrum in the lower 700 MHz range from Qualcomm should be merged for some time.
The FCC now concluded that “the proposed transactions raise a number of related issues, including, but not limited to, questions regarding AT&T’s aggregation of spectrum throughout the nation, particularly in overlapping areas.”
Therefore, the letter continued, the best way to deal with those overlaps would be to investigate both transactions “in a coordinated manner.” It noted that the investigation might be separated again at a later date.
Third parties had previously called for a joint investigation of the two deals, including competitor Sprint Nextel, and non-profit organisations FreePress, Consumers Union and the Open Technology Initiative.
