Wheeler indicates to Sprint that he?s skeptical of merger

Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son and Chief Executive Dan Hesse got a meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Monday. They wanted to convince Wheeler and the FCC to look favorably at their potential takeover of rival T-Mobile.

Wheeler and the FCC made no public statement – as is FCC policy concerning mergers. According to news reports, Wheeler said he’d keep an open mind, but a Reuters source said that he was more inclined to support “comments made last week by antitrust chief William Baer, who gave long odds to a regulatory approval of mergers between any two of the top four wireless phone companies.” In other words, probably not.

Discouraging regulators haven’t stopped Masayoshi Son from continuing to talk to T-Mobile, but both parties know they face an uphill battle in Washington.

Moreover, Sprint and T-Mobile seem to be losing in the court of public opinion. In a strongly worded opinion piece, Fierce Wireless editor Phil Goldstein laid out reasons for opposing the deal.

• A Sprint/T-Mobile merger is unlikely to get past regulators, and thus will be a waste of time.
• It would completely scramble plans for the upcoming spectrum auctions.
• It would distract management from other priorities, especially at Sprint.
• It would be immensely complicated to combine the two networks.
• A merger might remove T-Mobile’s “uncarrier” ways from the market; in other words, their recent price-cutting competitive moves.
• It likely would not lead to a company with enough clout to challenge Verizon and AT&T.

Speed Matters agrees with Goldstein and adds that neither company has shown respect enough for workers or consumers to earn approval.

FCC chief tells Sprint chair he is skeptical on T-Mobile deal (Reuters, Feb. 3, 2013)

6 reasons the Sprint/T-Mobile merger is a terrible idea (Phil Goldstein, FierceWireless, Jan. 29, 2014)