On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to approve the consolidation of two US wireless empires - T-Mobile Inc. and Sprint Corp - marking the final approval of a $23 billion contract sealed on April 1.
The deal had been finalized without the California PUC's final decision, which handed it via majority vote on Thursday. In March the CPUC had released a draft decision authorizing the merger with certain terms which the two companies agreed to honor.
The approval was unanimous, but it came with these conditions: T-Mobile needs to deliver 5G speeds of at least 300 Mbps to 93 percent of the state's population by the end of 2024 (and 100 Mbps to 99 percent by the end of 2026).
Under these terms, the company is also required to offer 100 Mbps to 85 percent of the rural population and 50 Mbps to 94 percent of the rural population by end of 2026. The telco must also provide fixed home Internet access to at least 2.3 million homes within six years, and maintain or improve existing 4G LTE quality and coverage.
The company must also raise employment in California by at least 1,000, and add at least 300,000 new clients to the LifeLine network. In the span of 120 days, the CPUC will name an independent investigator to verify compliance with the agreement.
Although the operator told Mobile World Lve that it will now crack on with efforts to consolidate the two firms in the area, it played calm when asked as to whether it could contest the conditions of the approval, saying only that it was happy that the CPUC evaluation has been finalized.
The company said they are moving forward to bring the benefits of the merger to California's consumers, workers and communities.
On March 5, 2020, the CPUC was given an advisory opinion by the State Attorney General about the planned merger. It concluded that while the fusion's anti-competitive effects outweighed its possible benefits in California, those effects could be reduced with different types of terms, as implemented by today's decision.
The new entity will now operate under the name T-Mobile, and will have the symbol "TMUS" on the NASDAQ trading. The merger is intended to encourage the merged company to access their high-band and low-band spectrum, which will allow national 5G to roll out more rapidly.
In 2019, the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission signed off on the deal. The department approved the transaction in July on condition the merged wireless business sell assets to Dish Network, rendereing it as the fourth biggest wireless provider in the U.S.
