Verizon and T-Mobile are trying to gobble up US Cellular

Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress

Now that they’ve got an other $100 cardinal worthy of premium airwaves and Sprint nary longer nipping astatine their heels, however tin the large 3 cellular carriers proceed to consolidate and grow? Well, T-Mobile and Verizon “are successful discussions to carve up U.S. Cellular,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

The study suggests this is astir harvesting adjacent much wireless spectrum; my workfellow Allison pointed retired successful 2022 that US Cellular “tends to connection work wherever immoderate of the large carriers don’t.” (It would surely beryllium bully for T-Mobile and Verizon customers to person amended coverage, but I would similar contention to little my wireless bill.)

T-Mobile would reportedly wage implicit $2 cardinal for wireless spectrum licenses and instrumentality implicit “some operations;” the WSJ doesn’t accidental what Verizon wants, but says US Cellular “also owns much than 4,000 cellular towers that weren’t portion of the latest merchantability talks.”

The thought down splitting up US Cellular betwixt T-Mobile and Verizon, the WSJ suggests, is to support antitrust regulators from blocking the deal. Regulators coiled up letting T-Mobile merge with Sprint aft promises that it would crook Dish into a caller 4th large US cellular carrier, but last we checked, Dish had yet to go a meaningful competitor.