Decision Time for T-Mobile/UScellular Transaction

On May 2, UScellular announced that it lost about 38,000 wireless post-paid subscribers in the first quarter of 2025 – double the subscriber losses it incurred in the last quarter of 2024. Right now, UScellular is a party to a proposed transaction to transfer about 30% of its spectrum licenses as well as its wireless operations and subscribers to T-Mobile. It is not unexpected for a firm selling assets (or merging with a larger firm) to experience hardships in the marketplace during the pendency of transaction review proceedings by government agencies such as the FCC. Yet such an occurrence is a compelling reason for the Commission to act quickly in completing its review of the T-Mobile/UScellular transaction. 

Today, May 6, is day 188 on the FCC's informal 180-day "shot clock" for reviewing the T-Mobile/UScellular transaction. In other words, the Commission already has exceeded the period that the agency has established as its review timeline goal. Moreover, the Justice Department-led Team Telecom review of T-Mobile/UScellular – with a standard review period of up to 120 days – didn't even kick off until April 10. Thus, further review proceeding delays by both the FCC and Team Telecom threaten to damage UScellular by keeping it in regulatory limbo. Both reviews must be brought to a speedy conclusion.

As explained in comments filed in January 2025 by the Free State Foundation in January – and encapsulated and a March 31 blog post by Senior Fellow Andrew Long – the T-Mobile/UScellular transaction appears to be both pro-competitive and pro-consumer. The record in the proceeding strongly indicates wireless consumers, including existing UScellular subscribers, would benefit from the approval of the transaction. Also, arguments raised in the proceeding by parties opposing T-Mobile/UScellular all but entirely involve matters that are extraneous to the deal. 

 

Moreover, at a surface level, it is highly unlikely that T-Mobile's acquisition of commercial spectrum licenses, wireless operations, and subscribers would negatively impact U.S. national security. Certainly, no lengthy Team Telecom review should be needed to reach a conclusion. 

 

The fact that the Biden Administration moved slowly at the commencement of the T Mobile/UScellular review proceeding is all the more reason for the Trump Administration to move with dispatch in considering the transaction. 

House Hearing Should Prompt Action on Wireless Spectrum, FCC Auctions

On January 23, the House Subcommittee on Communications & Technology will hold a hearing titled "Strengthening American Leadership in Wireless Technology." The hearing will feature witness testimony addressing spectrum management, licensed versus unlicensed spectrum, spectrum auction authority, international harmonization, and radio access networks (RANs).

The hearing is important because next-generation wireless networks are vital to our nation's economic vitality and competitive. Also, the hearing is timely because there is an urgent need for more spectrum dedicated to commercial wireless use, particularly licensed spectrum and especially spectrum in the mid-band range (1 GHz to 7 GHz).

 

Wireless device connections and mobile data usage are rising sharply each year, with demand rising ever-higher in the years to come. Unfortunately, the U.S. supply of licensed spectrum is likely to fall short absent the reallocation of additional spectrum from government occupancy to private commercial use. At this moment, there is no spectrum waiting in the wings to be repurposed for commercial use, despite federal agencies using or at least occupying significant amounts of spectrum resources. To make matters more difficult, the FCC's general authority to conduct spectrum license auctions and issues licenses to auction bid winners lapsed in 2023. 

 

The 119th Congress and the Trump Administration should take decisive action to replenish the stock of mid-band spectrum and revive the Commission's auction authority. The first Trump Administration's National Spectrum Strategy stalled out, and the Biden Administration's National Spectrum has been criticized for its painful slowness and overstudying instead of producing results. Whatever has come before now, every available good option for fast-tracking and getting more spectrum into private use should be pursued and a re-stocked spectrum pipeline made into reality. 

 

The House Subcommittee's January 23 spectrum hearing memo is available here. Hopefully, the hearing will lead to prompt concrete action in the 119th Congress on spectrum and other important wireless policy issues.