Senators Urge DOJ and FCC to Closely Scrutinize T-Mobile Acquisition of UScellular

US senators wrote to Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Jessica Rosenworcel, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), urging them to closely scrutinize T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of UScellular. Since T-Mobile acquired Sprint in 2020, just three carriers have dominated the national mobile wireless service market. If approved, T-Mobile’s proposed $4.4 billion acquisition of UScellular would further deplete competition in the industry, giving T-Mobile access to four million new customers. Already, T-Mobile’s 2020 merger with Sprint has had harmful impacts – decreasing market competition, increasing prices for consumers, and harming employees. A class action suit filed in June 2022 charged that decreased competition resulting from the T-Mobile/Sprint merger caused cell phone costs for AT&T and Verizon customers to go up by billions of dollars. U.S. wireless customers have long paid some of the highest prices in the world, and this has only worsened since the merger. In addition to hurting consumers, the T-Mobile/Sprint merger has hit employees particularly hard. The companies have conducted numerous rounds of layoffs, including firing 5,000 employees in the fall of 2023, just two weeks before announcing extensive stock buybacks for shareholders. Antitrust law prohibits any merger that may substantially lessen competition, and the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission’s finalized Merger Guidelines make clear that a merger between competitors that further consolidates a highly concentrated market may impermissibly substantially lessen competition. Given the existing concentration in the wireless market, T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of UScellular would exacerbate current high concentration levels in presumptive violation of antitrust laws.