monopoly

Does DISH matter? That’s the question that’ll determine whether the California Public Utilities Commission makes a (relatively) fast decision to allow T-Mobile to acquire Sprint. If it doesn’t, lawyers for T-Mobile and its allies hinted that the deal might move ahead without Californian conditions or, indeed, permission.

Yesterday, CPUC administrative law judge Karl Bemesderfer listened to arguments from lawyers on T-Mobile’s side who pressed for a quick end to the case, and from opponents of the deal who pushed for lengthy, formal litigation.… More

The California Public Utilities Commission should get the dish on DISH, before deciding whether T-Mobile’s proposed takeover of Sprint “would serve the public interest”, according to a protest filed yesterday by a coalition of opponents to the deal. The group includes the CPUC’s public advocates office, two consumer advocacy groups and the Communications Workers of America, the primary telecoms union in California. To do that, they propose a schedule of testimony and arguments that would bump any decision on the merger until sometime next spring.… More

T-Mobile (and Sprint, but it’s T-Mobile running the show) refiled and amended its application for merger approval with the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, as directed by the administrative law judge managing the case. Generally, the changes add a bit more detail about how the settlement T-Mobile reached with the federal justice department’s antitrust enforcers changes the promises it made to the CPUC earlier in the proceeding.

The core of the settlement involves transferring most of Sprint’s prepaid customers, along with retail outlets, cell sites and spectrum, to DISH, in order to create a new competitor in the mobile broadband market.… More

Another round of brilliant lawyering by T-Mobile’s crack legal team has pushed back approval (or not) of its acquisition of Sprint by the California Public Utilities Commission until late this year or, maybe, sometime in 2020. Yesterday, CPUC administrative law judge Karl Bemesderfer ruled that the settlement T-Mobile, Sprint and DISH reached with the federal justice department should, as requested, be considered during California’s regulatory review of the merger. But not, as T-Mobile oddly argued, with blind faith in the wisdom of the Trump administration’s anti-trust team.… More

Another round of brilliant lawyering by T-Mobile’s ace legal team has pushed back approval (or not) of its acquisition of Sprint by the California Public Utilities Commission until late this year or, maybe, sometime in 2020. Yesterday, CPUC administrative law judge Karl Bemesderfer ruled that the settlement T-Mobile, Sprint and DISH reached with the federal justice department should, as requested, be considered during California’s regulatory review of the merger. But not, as T-Mobile oddly argued, with blind faith in the wisdom of the Trump administration’s anti-trust team.… More

T-Mobile filed its reply yesterday to critics who don’t want the California Public Utilities Commission to blindly accept the wonderfulness of the deal it reached with anti-trust enforcers at the federal justice department, as it tries to complete its acquisition of Sprint. The CPUC should behold the glory of that settlement, T-Mobile’s lawyers argued, because it’s irrelevant.

Huh, you ask?

Yeah, it’s bizarre logic but it makes sense in a twisted sort of way.… More