The deadline for public comments on the big merger was Tuesday. Surprise, surprise, Sprint filed a petition to the FCC to block the merger saying “The proposed transaction would produce no tangible public interest benefits and would impose serious anti-competitive harms that cannot be remedied through divestitures or conditions.”
In addition, the FCC wants AT&T to defend some of its claims, particularly the idea that the company is starting at a spectrum shortage.
The agency is asking the company to provide “all plans, analyses, and reports discussing the relative network spectrum capacity constraints of the Company and other mobile wireless service providers, including any relevant pricing, traffic and spectrum efficiency assumptions.”
The agency would also like AT&T’s definition of what actually constitutes a spectrum constraint, “including the factors involved in making that determination in any relevant area.And it would like to know if the company considered any alternatives to buying T-Mobile to solve the alleged dilemma. Has it considered boosting its network capacity? Adding additional cell sites? Expanding backhaul? “Acquiring new spectrum?
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