Predictably, T-Mobile’s merger promises weren’t enough to make a carrier out of Dish

When T-Mobile acquired Sprint in April of 2020, it brought our major wireless carrier choices from four down to three. Recognizing that this would indeed be a bad thing for US wireless customers (aka all of us), T-Mobile agreed to a set of conditions with the FCC’s blessing that would theoretically position Dish Network to fill the Sprint-shaped hole in our wireless landscape. In other words, one wireless competitor was allowed to reduce competition only if it agreed to help set up another competitor in its place. Sounds a little suspect, right? Surely a deal like that would include a lot of conditions, requirements, and oversight to make sure it would actually work. But looking back, these were the major requirements imposed on T-Mobile to prop up Dish as a competitor:

• Sell Sprint’s prepaid business, including Boost Mobile, to Dish within 120 days after the close of the merger, and maintain Boost’s competitiveness before the divestiture
• Provide Dish’s wireless customers with access to the T-Mobile network for at least six years through a wholesale MVNO agreement while Dish builds its own network
• Provide transition services for up to three years afterward to ensure Boost customers are transferred smoothly
• Not do anything anticompetitive toward Boost, like throttling or limiting access to new network technologies
• Sell Sprint’s 800 MHz spectrum to Dish three years after the closing of the merger
• Give Dish the option to acquire old Sprint cell sites and retail stores that T-Mobile opts to decommission
• Provide Dish with reasonable advance notice of network transition plans that could affect Boost customers

What’s missing there is any definition of success.