Wireless Telecommunications

Sprint and T-Mobile have agreed on new terms for their merger, as the wireless carriers race to close the deal. The parties will improve the exchange ratio in the all-stock deal for T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom AG. Originally, 9.75 Sprint shares were to be exchanged for each T-Mobile share. Under the revised deal, SoftBank Group, which owns more than 80% of Sprint’s common stock, will exchange the equivalent of 11 of its shares for each T-Mobile share.

T-Mobile says the Federal Communications Commission screwed up 4G measurements in a report that accused the carrier of exaggerating its mobile coverage. The FCC report "incorrectly implies, based on a flawed verification process, that we overstated coverage," T-Mobile said in an FCC filing Feb 17. The FCC staff report, issued in Dec 2019, found that Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular exaggerated their 4G coverage in official filings. As the FCC said, "Overstating mobile broadband coverage misleads the public and can misallocate our limited universal service funds."

Facebook Terragraph gigabit wireless technology is gaining some traction with the news that Puerto Rican competitive carrier AeroNet will pilot the technology in Old San Juan (PR). The development follows other Terragraph deployments in Alameda (CA) and in Hungary. Terragraph works over 60 GHz spectrum, which is available for unlicensed use. It is even higher-frequency spectrum than the millimeter wave spectrum that AT&T and Verizon used for initial 5G deployments – which means it potentially could support higher speeds but over shorter distances.

The Federal Communications Commission's Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force proposes to release certain mobile broadband coverage data submitted pursuant to the Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Order. The Task Force commences this process to allow the agency to publicly release carrier-specific 4G LTE coverage maps derived from the MF-II coverage data, consistent with FCC rules and precedent.

People wonder: what role does the Federal Communications Commission have in the future of work? And I say, the better question is what role doesn’t the FCC have in the future of work? Fifth Generation wireless technology (5G) is going to shape our collective future – and we need to think as hard about people as we doabout pole attachments. Further, when we’re talking about the future of work, we’re talking about digital skills, and it would be misguided for us to not couple that discussion with the importance of broadband access and broadband adoption.

Although T-Mobile and Sprint still have one last hurdle to clear (the California Public Utilities Commission, which is still reviewing the merger), the companies will try to close the deal as early as April 1, creating a supersize carrier (called, wait for it, T-Mobile) with more than 100 million customers. When (or if) the deal closes, T-Mobile customers will remain with the service. It is unclear what, if anything, will change for them. For Sprint customers, it’s a little more complicated. The majority will transfer to T-Mobile plans as the brand is absorbed.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of Sprint and T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger. 

Judge Victor Marrero of the United States District Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of T-Mobile’s takeover of Sprint in a deal that would further concentrate corporate ownership of technology, combining the nation’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers and creating a new telecommunications giant to take on AT&T and Verizon. The decision concluded an unusual suit filed in June by attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia. The challenge was brought after regulators at the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission approved the deal.

At the February 2020 open meeting, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on procedures for the 3.5 GHz Priority Access License, or PAL, auction. Having taken the lead on the issue, I'll admit that it has been a long road to get here, but this important step represents one of the last actions the FCC needs to take to make these critical mid-band licenses available for 5G and other next-generation wireless services.