Ownership

The 63-page filing by T-Mobile the week fo March 4 was meant to demonstrate that its purchase of rival Sprint is in the public interest. Yet the filing’s appearance -- which prompted US regulators to pause their review -- had some observers wondering if it’s a sign of trouble for the $26.5 billion deal. “At this stage of the game, filing something elaborate like this is not a sign of strength,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a media lawyer at Georgetown University Law Center.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, at least one chamber of Congress could be poised to meaningfully update consumer and competition protection rules for the internet age. In doing so, they would be well advised to follow Republican Theodore Roosevelt’s efforts in the industrial age. Today, the internet barons are making the rules for the new economy. Roosevelt’s admonition is simple: There must be a “still higher power” that makes rules for the protection of the public interest.

America’s big tech companies have achieved their level of dominance in part based on two strategies: 1) Using Mergers to Limit Competition Using and 2) Proprietary Marketplaces to Limit Competition.

The Federal Communications Commission paused its review of T-Mobile's proposed purchase of Sprint, adding to an already protracted battle to win approval to combine the third- and fourth-largest US wireless providers. The move from the Republican-led agency created fresh turmoil for the $26.5 billion merger, which has been under review for more than eight months. “All indications were this would be decided in the next few weeks” but now it appears “they haven’t made the case to the policy makers,” said Gigi Sohn, a former FCC aide and merger opponent.

T-Mobile says it’ll launch a 5G home internet service with fast speeds, easy installation, and low prices that will reach half of all US homes within five years and meaningfully shake up the woefully anti-competitive cable industry. There’s just one catch: T-Mobile says this only comes true if its Sprint merger is approved. In a blog post and Federal Communications Commission filing, T-Mobile outlines in the most detail yet what its 5G home internet service will look like.

Sprint and T-Mobile officials have convinced White House economic and national security policymakers to approve their proposed merger on the grounds that the new company will be a formidable competitor for foreign entities, including those in China, in the ongoing battle to build a fifth-generation wireless network. Despite Sprint and T-Mobile’s successful efforts lobbying those in the executive branch, there’s no guarantee the deal will receive approval from two key regulators that are necessary for the merger to close: The Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice.

State antitrust enforcers are expressing deep concerns that T-Mobile's proposed takeover of Sprint could raise prices for consumers, signaling they might seek to thwart the deal. Some state attorneys general who are investigating the $26 billion transaction took the unusual step this week of publicly voicing worries that the combination could harm competition, offering insight for the first time into how they view the tie-up.

The connective tissue that unites Louis Brandeis’s view of legislative action, the creation and enforcement of antitrust law, and the use of sectoral regulation is the willingness to experiment. We are well-acquainted with Brandeis’s invocation of the “laboratories of the states” but his reliance on experimentation, what we might today call innovation, runs much deeper than that well-known aphorism.

A Q&A Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidentional nomination.

Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is leading a group of progressive Democratic Representatives in calling on regulators to block the proposed $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, arguing that the deal will hurt workers and the low-income consumers who rely on the two telecommunications giants' affordable offerings. Rep Tlaib and 36 Democratic Reps are sending letters to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim.