The US Department of Justice (DoJ) issued long-awaited approval for a proposed $26 billion merger between T-Mobile US and Sprint – and, as expected, demanded the divestiture of assets to Dish Network in exchange for its blessing.
Specifically, T-Mobile and Sprint will be required to divest the latter’s Boost Mobile prepaid brand and 800MHz spectrum assets to Dish [1], and make available for lease at least 20,000 cell sites and “hundreds” of retail locations for Dish’s use. Additionally, T-Mobile must grant Dish access to its network for seven years, while the latter builds its own 5G network.
In a statement, DoJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said the merger and divestitures will help ensure “large amounts of currently unused or underused spectrum are made available to American consumers in the form of high quality 5G networks”.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere hailed the news as “an incredibly important step forward”.
“Our goal was to ensure that the DOJ’s concerns were addressed while enabling us to deliver on every aspect of the synergies we promised to unlock… and we did it. It may have taken longer than expected by some, but today’s results are a win-win for everyone involved.”
[1] https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/dish-closes-in-on-6b-sprint-t-mobile-asset-buy/
