Congress Should Not Use COVID-19 Recovery Money to Fund T-Mobile’s Merger Commitments

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), New America’s Open Technology Institute, the Rural Wireless Association, NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association, the American Economic Liberties Project, and Free Press Action sent a letter calling on Congress to ensure that T-Mobile does not receive COVID-19 recovery funding to meet the merger specific build-out commitments it agreed to when it sought approval of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger from the Federal Communications Commission, Department of Justice, state attorneys general, and state public utilities commissions. “The New T-Mobile has repeatedly and emphatically claimed that as a direct result of the merger, it would have the necessary resources to deliver 5G to millions of square miles of the US and hundreds of millions of Americans, including those living in and traveling through rural America,” the letter says. “[T]o the extent there will be additional stimulus recovery measures Congress needs to make sure T-Mobile does not receive funding as a corporate handout to meet commitments it already made based on synergies that it lauded to get its deal done.” The groups also point out that the FCC specified that its decision to approve the merger “would be conditioned on the network build out commitments of the licensees to provide 5G service to a large portion of the US population, including rural areas.”