Archives: Phones & Cell Phones

The Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union filed a Petition to Deny (PDF), on March 30, 2005, urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny the proposed Sprint/Nextel merger. These consumer groups also filed reply comments (PDF) on April 18, replying to opponents of our earlier Petition to Deny

The Sprint/Nextel combination would violate the standard the FCC set for telecom mergers in the 2004 AT&T Wireless/Cingular agreement, resulting in too much market concentration which could lead to fewer cell phone choices and higher prices for consumers. 

As it did in Cingular/AT&T Wireless, the Commission should force the combined Sprint/Nextel entity to divest assets in overly-concentrated markets, which should be defined on a local basis.  The FCC should condition its approval of the Sprint/Nextel deal based on the standard the Commission applied in the Cingular/AT&T Wireless merger and let Sprint/Nextel hold rights to licenses for no more than 70 MHz of the airwaves in any given geographic market.  This will help keep Sprint/Nextel from squeezing out new competitors in highly-concentrated markets.

It is critical that the FCC do so, because as it recognized in the Cingular/AT&T Wireless merger, it is antithetical to the public interest to allow one company to control such a high proportion of the airwaves, which belong to the public.  Some of the spectrum at issue is also expected to be used to provide mobile broadband services, which could connect consumers to the Internet. The Commission should also allow unlicensed users to share the spectrum on a non-interfering basis, which would lead to greater innovation and more competition in the cell phone market.

Read more about what’s at stake in today’s wireless marketplace