RWA to Appeal FCC’s T-Mobile-UScellular Approval
Rural carriers had opposed the $4.3 billion deal and wanted conditions imposed on any approval.
WASHINGTON, July 14, 2025 – The Rural Wireless Association intends to file an internal appeal challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of T-Mobile’s $4.3 billion purchase of UScellular’s wireless business.
“The FCC’s approval of the T-Mobile/UScellular transaction will ultimately hurt rural Americans, rural carriers, and Americans who travel through rural America,” RWA outside counsel Carri Bennet said in an emailed statement Monday. “FCC staff’s failure to impose meaningful safeguards is a dereliction of its duty to protect competition and consumers and safeguard the public interest.”
The group said in the release it “intends to seek full Commission review” of the approval, which the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau granted on Friday. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday he supported the deal and that the agency was “working to unleash new builds, encourage greater investment, and expand network capacity.” He has a 2-1 Republican majority at the agency.
If the approval stands, T-Mobile is set to acquire UScellular’s 4.4 million customers and about a third of its spectrum. UScellular is also selling spectrum licenses to AT&T and Verizon for about $1 billion each, deals which the FCC has not yet approved.
RWA had opposed all three deals, arguing they collectively represented the three dominant carriers carving up their second largest competitor and further edging out smaller providers. The group and consumer advocates had asked the agency to review the deals together rather than separately.
The group reiterated that point Monday, saying the transactions “collectively represent a significant restructuring of the mobile wireless market,” and that declining to review them collectively was an “error” that “begs for a full Commission review of staff’s decision.”
RWA also wanted conditions imposed on the deal if the FCC did give the greenlight, namely a requirement that T-Mobile would adhere to UScellular’s existing roaming deals with smaller rural carriers. The agency did not impose such a condition, or any other, although T-Mobile agreed to axe diversity initiatives and to additional tower climber protections before getting approval. Consumer groups had sought other pro-worker commitments and a phone unlocking mandate.
The FCC said in its order approving the deal that its existing roaming agreement rules were enough to ensure rural carriers would get fair deals, and that if they had difficulty they could submit a complaint to the agency.
RWA did not think that was adequate, calling the process “fraught with delay” and insufficiently transparent.
The FCC said in a statement Friday that the deal “is expected to result in substantial network benefits for customers of both T-Mobile and UScellular, including additional capacity and coverage benefits, as well as improved fixed wireless access service with higher speeds and capacity.”
The Justice Department separately approved the deal Thursday night. The department said it was concerned about increasing consolidation in the wireless industry, but that it would not take steps to block the T-Mobile deal or UScellular’s spectrum sales to AT&T and Verizon.
The FCC, for its part, made clear it does not share the competition concerns harbored by the DOJ and opponents of the T-Mobile-UScellular deal.
“We reject the opponents’ implicit assumption that a reduction in the number of competitors from four to three is dispositive,” the agency wrote in its order Friday. “The Commission has never adopted a rigid numerical threshold to define effective competition, and doing so would fail to account for the dynamic and evolving nature of the communications marketplace.”
T-Mobile’s acquisition was originally valued at $4.4 billion, but UScellular missed some performance benchmarks and $100 million was taken off. UScellular is still looking to sell its estimated $1.8 billion in remaining spectrum licenses, with most of that value coming from C-band licenses. The company is retaining its roughly 4,500 towers.
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