Groups: FCC Needs to Combine Review of Big UScellular Deals
UScellular has deals to sell its operations and much of its spectrum to the three major wireless carriers.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, May 13, 2025 – Consumer advocacy groups and rural wireless carriers are again voicing concerns about UScellular’s plan to sell off its customers and much of its spectrum to the big three 5G providers. This time, the groups want the Federal Communications Commission to review the separate deals as a single transaction.
“Consolidated review is particularly important for the Commission’s accurate review of competition, an important facet of the public interest review,” the groups wrote in a Monday filing. “Viewed collectively, the three transactions effectuate a scheme that would likely violate the antitrust laws were it subject to them.”
UScellular agreed last May to sell its 4 million wireless customers and about a third of its spectrum to T-Mobile for $4.4 billion, but the price has been cut by $100 million. Later last year, the regional carrier inked spectrum sales to AT&T and Verizon for about $1 billion each. The deals need FCC approval.
The Monday petition was signed by the Rural Wireless Association, Public Knowledge, the Communications Workers of America, New America’s Open Technology Institute, and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. Many of the same groups have urged the FCC to deny the T-Mobile deal and AT&T deals on the grounds they were anticompetitive, efforts the companies involved have opposed.
“In short, three dominant competitors agreed to divide the spoils of a fourth competitor, with no involvement or opportunity for smaller competitors to have a chance at the spectrum or other assets,” the opponents wrote Monday. “This results in the three dominant players gaining the ability and incentive to increase prices and limit innovation efforts.”
AT&T and UScellular opposed calls to consolidate the spectrum transactions in their own Monday filing.
“The Transaction is a straightforward, spectrum-only transaction that should be reviewed on its own merits,” the companies wrote of the spectrum sale to AT&T. They added that the three transactions “are also in different places procedurally, with the Verizon transaction not even yet accepted for filing, suggesting that this effort may merely be a delay tactic.”
The companies also argued against the petitions to deny the AT&T spectrum sale, saying the deal would serve the public interest by boosting AT&T’s performance in the license areas. AT&T would need the FCC to waive a spectrum ownership cap for the 3.45 GigaHertz band in order to complete the transaction.
In addition to the petitions to deny the AT&T and T-Mobile deals, two attorneys have been urging the FCC to delay approving the transactions while their lawsuits against UScellular play out. The two allege the regional carrier improperly obtained some of the spectrum at issue through its relationship with smaller companies that received bidding discounts from the FCC.
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to rehear one of the cases after siding with UScellular.
Executives at UScellular said that, despite the opposition, they expect to close the T-Mobile deal in mid-2025 and expect FCC approval on the other spectrum sales. T-Mobile executives didn’t indicate any issues with the acquisition on the company’s earnings call in April.
T-Mobile CFO Peter Osvaldik said Tuesday at a J.P. Morgan conference that the company was “very excited” to close the UScellular transaction and put the extra airwaves to work.
