This week, Public Knowledge filed comments with the Department of Justice regarding its proposed conditions on the Sprint / T-Mobile merger.

Yesterday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai circulated a draft order to approve the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. The move follows the Department of Justice’s approval of the deal, pending the divestiture of prepaid brands and customers, as well as several side agreements designed to accelerate Dish Network’s entry into the wireless market.

Today, 10 state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, announced that they have filed a multi-state lawsuit to stop the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Plaintiffs include New York, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Today, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai released a statement announcing his support of the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger with modest conditions. The proposed merger is still pending approval by the full FCC as well as the Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and the California Public Utilities Commission. Public Knowledge opposes the transaction as a member of the 4Competition Coalition, filed a Petition to Deny with the FCC, and testified against the deal on Capitol Hill.

Today, Public Knowledge, joined by Common Cause, Consumers Union, New America’s Open Technology Institute, and Writers Guild of America West filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to deny the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.

Today, Sprint Corporation and T-Mobile U.S. Inc. announced plans to merge to form a massive wireless carrier. The combination would reduce the number of national wireless carriers from four to three. Just as the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission concluded when the government rejected AT&T’s 2011 attempt to acquire T-Mobile, such a drastic reduction in competition is likely to harm competition and increase costs for consumers.

Today, T-Mobile announced a plan to exempt certain services from metering on its wireless plans. This follows its similar program for music services.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission clarified its legal standard for the negotiation of data roaming agreements by acting on a petition from T-Mobile. Although not a policy change, the new guidance from the FCC should help small carriers ensure they can negotiate data roaming agreements on commercially reasonable terms.

This week was the T-Mobile/Sprint merger trial’s second week, and it focused on the Department of Justice’s proposed remedy: having the combined TMO/Sprint spin off a number of assets to DISH and provide DISH with a bunch of other spectrum and network access rights to enable DISH to enter the market as a competing fourth […]

In 2011, Public Knowledge fought hard against the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, until it was finally called off just nine months after its announcement. The merger, which would have led to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers, faced tremendous opposition. Today, we see many of the same industry talking points for the T-Mobile/Sprint proposed merger: false claims about deployment of next-generation networks, market concentration, pricing, and rural broadband access. So we were glad to see that the Yale School of Management added a section on the AT&T/T-Mobile proposed merger as a case study to its Antitrust Enforcement Data project. The project, featuring a wide range of data, serves as a resource for information and economic analyses on antitrust enforcement.