FCC Asks Carriers for Info in UScellular Deal Review

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission is requesting additional information from major and competitive mobile carriers as part of its evaluation of T-Mobile’s purchase of UScellular.

The agency sent letters Tuesday to Verizon, AT&T, Charter, Comcast, EchoStar, Altice, Cox, and Mediacom asking for internal analyses of the deal’s potential impact on the companies’ business plans and the state of competition in the mobile wireless industry generally. In addition, the cable companies were asked for the terms of the deals with carriers that allow them to provide their own mobile services and for information on their network engineering.

AT&T, EchoStar, Verizon and Altice got additional letters asking for detailed data on subscriber numbers, revenue, costs, capacity, and traffic demands. The agency wrote that it would “appreciate” responses to both sets of inquiries before May 13.

T-Mobile, one of the three largest 5G carriers in the country, announced in May 2024 it had reached a deal to buy the mobile operations of UScellular, a regional carrier with 4.4 million subscribers, along with some of its spectrum. The FCC, which has to review the transaction for public interest harms or anti-competitive effects, has been taking comments since late last year.

“For the Commission to complete its review of the applications and make the necessary public interest findings under” the Communications Act, “we require information and documents from” each of the companies, the FCC wrote in the letters. 

The agency sent similar inquiries in 2018 when evaluating T-Mobile’s purchase of Sprint, which the agency ultimately approved. 

Parties opposed to the UScellular deal, rural wireless carriers, EchoStar, and consumer advocacy groups, have met with agency staff in recent weeks to reiterate their position. They cited concerns about a reduction in competition, spectrum consolidation, and layoffs, among other things. T-Mobile has maintained the transaction would serve the public interest by improving service quality and expanding rural broadband access.

Analysts did not expect the deal to be blocked at the time. By New Street Research's estimates, the deal would substantially harm competition in the markets where UScellular operates – more than the Sprint deal – but wouldn’t meaningfully change the picture on a national level.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has made clear he’s willing to hold up mergers if companies don’t roll back diversity efforts. T-Mobile evidently satisfied Carr by changing some procurement policies, as its purchase of a regional fiber provider was cleared last month.

UScellular is also selling some of its spectrum assets to AT&T and Verizon, for $1 billion each. The company will retain its more than 4,400 towers.