FCC Says It Needs More Time To Review T-Mobile, Sprint Merger (cnbc.com)

The FCC says it needs more time to review the proposed Sprint-T-Mobile deal, the agency said in a letter to the companies Tuesday. According to CNBC, "The agency has paused an 'informal' 180-day transaction clock 'to allow for thorough staff and third-party review' of recently submitted materials." From the report: Sprint and T-Mobile have gone down a rocky road to a merger, calling off and resuming talks. The companies announced that they would merge last April in a bid to cut costs and combine forces to develop a next-generation network called 5G, which would provide faster speeds, more capacity and lower response times. But the companies could encounter hurdles to gaining regulatory approval for the tie-up. A deal between T-Mobile and Sprint, who are the third largest and fourth largest wireless carriers in the United States by subscribers, previously faced opposition from antitrust regulators under President Barack Obama's administration.

Comments

Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this have to do with tech?

What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Trump"s America. If the merger is bad for consumers, then just approve it already. How hard is that?

Re:What's the holdup?

[h33t l4x0r]

They're waiting for a bigger bribe.

Re:What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because the merger will actually be good for consumers hence why they don't want to approve it. I'm sure if it were ATT or Verizon trying to buy up Sprint it would have been rubber stamped months ago and delivered in a golden box to the CEO

Re: What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump supporter but opposed to the merger. Sprint has always been a so-so telco. This will only serve to water down T-Mobile unless they rebrand everything and subsume Sprint's network. I've worked for telcos before as a sysadmin, and nothing is worse than mergers, unless the target company is done away with and the assets added to the buying parent immediately. If T-Mobile were to immediately rebrand and add Sprint's spectrum ASAP, the improvement would be worth it. But if they coddle Sprint as a standalone child, this will go horribly for the consumers. Sprint is barely staying afloat as it is. Verizon is likewise losing more customers to T-Mobile than any other telco.

Re: What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

dumbasses like you get on Trump for fixing thar because orange man bad or some other stupid burst of "logic".

They're just Democrats. They're going to hate on Trump no matter what he does or doesn't do. Hell, he could do everything they ever wanted, and they'd still hate him for it.

It's how politics works. It's like a big stupid game where nobody ever wins.

Re: What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly. Dems are a LOT less hypocritical than Republicans.

Case in point, inappropriate sexual advances by politicians. Republicans nominated Roy Moore (oh and 3x marriage, 12x assault Trump), and the Dems made Franken resign over a tasteless, but not actually a crime, fake grabby photo.

Re:What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the federal communication commission is waiting on Ajit to give the green light. It takes him a little longer to get bribe from Sprint and T-Mobile, they might not be on his speed dial like AT&T or Verizon are.

Re:What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Verizon hasn't yet decided how to tell their puppet to vote.

Re:What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Ajit Pai is indeed a puppet for Verizon, he could very well want to oppose action that would embolden Verizon's competition.

Re:What's the holdup?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Trump"s America. If the merger is bad for consumers, then just approve it already. How hard is that?

AT&T and Verizon don't like the idea.

They need more money to swing to vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see which lobbyist wins!

Merger plan

[datavirtue]

Someone competent needs to start reviewing the merger plans of these companies...any company. It is, by default, anti-competitive behavior and suspect in a free market. Harvard has studied this to death and they can rarely find value, let alone a benefit to consumers. The board and management seem to make out but no one else does.

I have been through an acquisition and the only value was to post the revenue of the acquired company in the quarterly results so the CEO could keep the board off his back. The acquired company immediately started a sliding in revenue once the synergies were realized (good people who knew the business were let go or had to leave to preserve thier career status).

Re:Merger plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing we have to wait until AT&T and, more importantly, Verizon set up their 5G networks first. After all, they used to pay the chairman of the FCC's salary directly. I'm guessing after a year or two, he will accept more bribes and approve it, but only after Verizon is more entrenched in 5G.

Re:Merger plan

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no benefit to the consumers, it is entirely to benefit the corporation and stock holders. You merge, fire half your staff whose positions are duplicated between the merging companies then serve the whole merged customer base with the same number of employees, maybe slightly more than the largest of the merging companies.

Operating costs go down for the merged companies, also a good way to shake out all the customer loyalty discounts like in the case of the Charter/TWC/BHN merger where they stopped offering discounts and any change to your account rolled you into the new Charter pricing plans which offered less for more expense than the prior TWC/BHN plans.

Re:Merger plan

[Snotnose]

Someone competent needs to start reviewing the merger plans of these companies...any company. It is, by default, anti-competitive behavior and suspect in a free market.

They have. They have been shouted down for at least since Clinton allowed the merger of 2 large oil companies. I remember that one because I used to think the D's would protect us from this shit, but Clinton took the donations and gave it a free pass.
/ Monica prolly had his cock in her mouth at the time
// #metoo is about 30 years too late
// fewer competition -> fewer consumer choices -> higher prices, no brainer

Re:Merger plan

[h33t l4x0r]

Actually, bigger oil companies can negotiate better with OPEC. It's not remotely the same situation as with Telcos.

Re:Merger plan

[Solandri]

It is, by default, anti-competitive behavior and suspect in a free market.

Mergers aren't anti-competitive by default.

• If one or both of the merging companies would otherwise have gone bankrupt, then it's not anti-competitive. The merger just redistributes the company's assets before bankruptcy, instead of after (assets are sold off). In other words, the merger accomplishes the same thing as a bankruptcy, except with less disruption to the market, creditors, stockholders, employees, and customers.
• If neither company is in danger of bankruptcy long-term, then yeah it's anti-competitive.

Sprint / T-Mobile merging is kinda 50/50. People have been saying Sprint is on the verge of bankruptcy for close to a decade. And T-Mobile's owner (Deutsche Telekom) has been trying to sell it on and off for close to a decade because of its poor financial performance. That would support a merger. But Sprint posted its first profit in years, and T-Mobile's profit (net income) has grown substantially in the last two years. Suggesting the two companies are recovering enough to make a merger unnecessary.

I guess reese's pieces check bounced

[Revek]

Lets face it that dingle berry only approves if he get paid.

Re:I guess reese's pieces check bounced

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a man with experience getting paid up front.

Re:I guess reese's pieces check bounced

[Frank Burly]

You lack imagination. Maybe he shorted them.