Is T-Mobile facing static over its latest 5G spectrum purchase?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it's going to more carefully look at the "competitive effects" of T-Mobile's plan to purchase more 2.5GHz spectrum for its 5G network. It's possible the agency's investigation into the topic could lead the FCC to reduce the amount of spectrum that T-Mobile hopes to gain. Broadly, the development may represent yet another setback in T-Mobile's efforts to obtain the spectrum it won during the FCC's Auction 108 of midband 2.5GHz spectrum that ended in 2022, with T-Mobile capturing around 90 percent of all the licenses sold. T-Mobile agreed to pay around $304 million for those licenses—a relative steal considering the C-band auction for similar spectrum licenses generated an astounding $81 billion in winning bids. However, the FCC didn't issue T-Mobile its spectrum winnings after the auction because, shortly after it ended, the agency lost its congressional auction authority to administer spectrum licenses.