Dish, Deutsche Telekom reportedly agree on asset sale allowing T-Mobile-Sprint merger to close

We could just be days away from seeing T-Mobile and Sprint finally receive approval from the U.S. Justice Department to complete their $26.5 billion merger. In order to receive the blessing of the regulatory agency to wed, T-Mobile and Sprint must agree to sell some assets to Dish Network to help create a new wireless provider to replace Sprint. Back on Thursday, we told you that there was one issue holding things up. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom wanted to include wording in any agreement that would allow T-Mobile to cancel any MVNO contract it signs with Dish if a third party took a larger than 5% stake in the satellite content operator. The MVNO agreement would allow Dish to sell wireless service over T-Mobile's network while it builds its own 5G pipeline.
The DOJ previously blocked AT&T's attempt to buy T-Mobile back in 2011
A few years ago, T-Mobile was left at the altar. In March 2011, when T-Mobile was an afterthought, AT&T agreed to purchase the carrier for $39 billion. The deal would have created the nation's largest wireless operator but was blocked by-you guessed it-the Justice Department. Dan Hesse, then Sprint's CEO, spoke out against the deal every chance he got. In 2014, both T-Mobile and Sprint spoke with the FCC and DOJ to see if there was any chance the agencies would approve a merger between the two. They were quickly rebuffed by both.
And while there were always rumors about a possible merger taking place between T-Mobile and Sprint, something changed. Under the leadership of CEO John Legere, T-Mobile became the most innovative and fastest-growing of the four major wireless operators in the U.S. While the dynamics of a merger between the pair had changed (T-Mobile would now be the acquirer), Sprint still had something T-Mobile wanted; namely, a hoard of 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum. T-Mobile plans to be first to construct a nationwide 5G network in the U.S. by combining its low-frequency 600MHz airwaves with its ultra high-frequency mmWave spectrum and adding Sprint's 2.5GHz spectrum in the middle. Recently, T-Mobile and Qualcomm had a successful test of the first 5G data call on the carrier's low band airwaves.
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