On Wednesday, T-Mobile US Inc. and Dish Network announced tht they finalized and completed T-Mobile’s divestiture of Boost Network to Dish. The DOJ and FCC both congratulated T-Mobile for the divestiture of Boost and were pleased to see it following this key condition of the Sprint acquisition.
In April, the massive Sprint and T-Mobile merger was finally completed after months of legal challenges by the DOJ, FCC, and state attorneys general for fear of antitrust violations and possible consumer issues.
The FCC conditioned its approval its 2019 approval of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint on it divesting its subsidiary, Boost Mobile. Boost Mobile offers prepaid mobile service. Government fears were that price-sensitive consumers in densely populated areas would be harmed by the merger. The goal of this condition is to make Dish a new and significant competitor in the mobile wireless network marketplace.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement that “I’m pleased to see that T-Mobile has met one of its most important merger commitments.” Additionally, “Today’s action is a key step towards promoting vigorous competition in the wireless marketplace, particularly for price-conscious consumers in our nation’s cities.” The FCC believes that Dish, by leveraging T-Mobile’s network and spectrum resources through a network access agreement, can allow it “to offer competitive service options while it builds out its own 5G network.”
Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said in a statement for the DOJ on Wednesday, “I congratulate T-Mobile and Dish for closing the Boost divestiture as required under the Final Judgment…This deal is a significant milestone in realizing the Department of Justice’s remedy, which is designed to strengthen competition for high-quality 5G networks and benefit American consumers nationwide.”