Posted on 02/11/2020 7:23:22 AM PST by Red Badger
Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Tuesday approved a bid by T-Mobile to merge with competitor Sprint in a combination of the nation's third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers.
Judge Victor Marrero of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled against 13 state attorneys general who sought to block the $26 billion deal as potentially harmful to consumers. They sued in June 2019, even before the merger was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission.
The companies argued their merger was needed to compete against the biggest wireless carriers, AT&T and Verizon, and to complete a build-out a nationwide 5G network.
Marrero concurred in his ruling, noting, "The proposed merger would allow the merged company to continue T-Mobile's undeniably successful business strategy for the foreseeable future."
News of the approval sent Sprint stock soaring by 65 percent as the markets opened Tuesday, while T-Mobile rose nearly 9 percent.
"Today was a huge victory for this merger ... and now we are FINALLY able to focus on the last steps to get this merger done," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a statement.
"The T-Mobile-Sprint merger will help close the digital divide and secure United States leadership in 5G," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. "After the merger, T-Mobile has committed to bringing 5G to 97 percent of our nation's population within three years and 99 percent of Americans within six years." RELATED Texas departs lawsuit to block $26B Sprint-T-Mobile merger
As part of its approval, the Justice Department required Sprint to divest Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Sprint's prepaid businesses. Also, Sprint and T-Mobile agreed to divest some of the wireless spectrum to Dish Network and make at least 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail stores available.
Under the settlement, Dish will be able to access T-Mobile's network for seven years as DIsh builds out its own 5G network.
The merger still must be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission before it can become official.
RELATED T-Mobile names new CEO amid pending merger with Sprint
Anti-Trust Laws, what are those?
One Phone Company to rule them all.
To be fair, Sprint is likely to go out of business in short order without this. This is less of a merger and more of just an acquisition. TMobile has actually been pretty stiff competition against AT&T and Verizon.
Wasn’t all that long ago WE ‘allowed’ them them to spend billions to split up AT&T.
That was back when a billion dollars meant something.
Cell phones companies are going to get hurt by VIOP over Musk’s Starlink. I would not invest a penny in cellular or cable — they’re doomed. There will be a convergence of Starlink and G5 that wipes out everything else.
“”””””””””To be fair, Sprint is likely to go out of business in short order without this.”””””””””””””
They suck. Their customer service is almost as bad as Comcast.
DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH MONEY THE DEMS CAN EXTORT FROM THEM.................
Then AT&T got their hooks into DirecTV and turned that into shit.
Although DirecTV’s customer service was alright, AT&T brought their customer service model to the table and it went down from a 5 to a zero. It was so bad that it was hard to pay their bill, which I think was their plan, so they could collect late fees. Where before I could just text in the monthly payment, AT&T linked it all through their un-user friendly website and their mobile app wasn’t any better. More usernames and passwords.
Yes, but they’re running out of money and they do actually have some critical network contracts.
Starlink has a lightspeed delay to orbit and back. Hope you like lag.
Anyone holding Sprint stock should note a 71% gain since opening this morning.
[Anyone holding Sprint stock should note a 71% gain since opening this morning.]
So two companies with crappy coverage just became one big company with even crappier coverage???
I took advantage of a similar chance yesterday to dump Edgewell (EPC) as it was never going anywhere and I was back to even with its 23% bump.
Sprint used to be rated worst in customer service. I bought a sprint account and after a long story they couldn’t/wouldn’t enable the phone I bought from THEM. Then, no refund. I had T-mobile and they were great, then they shut down cell access in my area. I hate cell phones.
That’s not really saying much...
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