Petition - Addressed to Federal Communications Commission to Halt T-Mobile-Sprint Merger

WASHINGTON - On October 3, Open Markets Institute joined a group of public interest groups and one union to file a petition before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to put the T-Mobile/Sprint merger on hold. This petition was filed after the FCC said that Sprint had misled the FCC and claimed that 885,000 subscribers were low-income and thus Sprint needed money from the FCC to serve them.

We argued that this was grounds to put the merger on pause because there is a longstanding precedent that license transfers and other transactions can't be completed if the character of the parties is at issue.

"The allegations against Sprint warrant investigation and delay of any Commission action on the T-Mobile/Sprint Application until such investigation is resolved. The Commission’s longstanding precedent under Jefferson Radio Co. v. FCC is clear that a company cannot sell or transfer a license when the company's fitness to hold a license is at issue."

Read full petition below or download here.