The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to approve T-Mobile’s proposed $26.5 billion deal with Sprint according to Reuters reports. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and two Republican commissioners voted in favor of the merger, while the two Democratic commissioners voted against it, according to sources.
The deal to combine T-Mobile and Sprint has been fighting to get government approval since April 2018. Despite the FCC approval, the carriers are still facing numerous challenges.
The U.S. Justice Department approved the merger in July. Per the DOJ deal, T-Mobile and Sprint would divest the latter’s prepaid business, including Boost Mobile, to satellite television company Dish Network and provide with access to 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations. The divestment deal is worth approximately $5 billion.
The fate of this deal is still in the hands of the a number of parties including the courts with a trial brought by 16 Attorney’s General is slated to begin December 9th. Mississippi recently exited the lawsuit and flipped after making a deal with T-Mobile to expedite their rollout in the state.
In addition there is still an ongoing investigation into Sprint’s collecting government subsidies on 885,000 low income Americans who weren’t actually Sprint subscribers.
Stay tuned
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