Two organisations that largely make their living objecting to utility company requests at the California Public Utilities Commission, and then billing the company involved or the CPUC for their time, filed a me too response yesterday to T-Mobile’s bid to speed up review of its proposed merger with Sprint.
T-Mobile, Sprint and DISH reached an agreement a couple of weeks ago that satisfied anti-trust objections raised by the federal justice department. The deal would let T-Mobile take over Sprint, while DISH would get reseller rights on the new network, and spectrum and retail assets to eventually build a competing system. They then asked the CPUC to accept the federal settlement as received wisdom and approve it immediately.
The CPUC’s public advocates office and a major telecoms union swiftly replied, arguing that 1. there was no procedural basis for what T-Mobile asked, and 2. the new deal with DISH needs to be examined rather than rubber stamped.
TURN and Greenlining, which style themselves utility consumer advocates and vigorously partake of the CPUC’s “intervenor compensation” program, [restated those arguments in yesterday’s filing](https://tellusventure.com/downloads/cpuc/t
mobile_sprint/turn_opposition_motion_to_advise_tmobile_sprint_5aug2019.pdf). DISH’s plans, in particular, took some heat, raising the question of how deeply and actively it might need to be involved as the CPUC’s merger review moves ahead.
They also rightly accused T-Mobile of “dismiss[ing] the need for a [CPUC] review and public interest determination of its wireless transaction, instead operating under the presumption that the commission’s review of the wireless transaction has no legal effect”.
There’s no end in sight yet, for either the tussle over the DISH settlement or for the CPUC’s review overall. Last week, T-Mobile asked for and received emailed permission from the administrative law judge managing the case to file a response to everyone’s objections. They can do that any time in the next couple of weeks, but don’t expect them to wait very long.