美国国家公共电台 NPR T-Mobile And Sprint Merger Finally Wins Justice Department's Blessing（在线收听）

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The Justice Department has given its blessing to a deal that would transform America's wireless industry. Sprint and T-Mobile are now a step closer to merging. It would create the nation's third-largest wireless phone carrier, behind Verizon and AT&T. As NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: The two carriers first proposed a merger five years ago. That fell through because of concerns that less competition would raise prices for consumers. Then last year, the companies came back with their current $26 billion plan to merge. Erik Gordon is a business professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

ERIK GORDON: This deal is one of the longest deals in gestation, ever.

NOGUCHI: The companies argued that by combining they could invest more heavily in superfast, 5G wireless networks.

GORDON: Neither company wanted to foot the bill alone. So they had every incentive to get together.

NOGUCHI: Gordon says the Justice Department bought that argument. Makan Delrahim is assistant attorney general.

MAKAN DELRAHIM: The combination of T-Mobile and Sprint creates real procompetitive efficiencies by accelerating the 5G broadband build-out in the United States and, importantly, to many people in the rural parts of the country.

NOGUCHI: As part of its bargain with regulators, Sprint will have to sell its Boost Mobile prepaid phone business and some of its valuable airwaves to Dish Network. That means Dish, a satellite TV company with no experience in the phone business, would resell T-Mobile's service, becoming the fourth-largest national wireless provider. These concessions did not appease consumer advocates. Gigi Sohn is a fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law & Policy. She says the merging companies had been the industry's fiercest competitors, and their rivalry served consumers well.

GIGI SOHN: T-Mobile really was the maverick company in this space. Both T-Mobile and Sprint. They were the ones who got rid of two-year contracts. They were the ones who let you take your device to different networks. You know, they were the ones who had family plans.

NOGUCHI: George Slover, senior policy counsel for Consumer Reports, says he thinks the effect is that consumers will end up paying more.

GEORGE SLOVER: It's going to be less quality, higher prices, fewer choices, all of the harms that we've been talking about since the merger was proposed.

NOGUCHI: The deal has one tentative approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which will vote on the proposal. But the deal has not yet cleared all legal hurdles. A group of state attorneys general led by California and New York has filed suit trying to block the deal. They claim the combination would raise wireless prices on consumers by more than $4.5 billion a year. That trial is currently scheduled to take place in October, but the states have requested a delay.

Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.