The controversial merger between T-Mobile and Sprint has moved a step closer to being finalized, after the two companies adjusted the terms of their deal to appease the Federal Communications Commission this week. The deal, which has been the topic of discussion for years due to monopolization concerns, was recently thought completely dead after the FCC and US Department of Justice expressed extreme opposition.

Now, both telecom companies have announced new terms of the deal that will help more Americans, especially in rural areas. First, the new company will bring 100 Megabit-per-second download speeds to at least 66 per cent of Americans within three years of the deal closing. Both companies will develop a 5G network within 6 years of the deal, which will also span across parts of rural America. The new company will also aim to offer homeowners an in-home broadband product.

If any of the terms of the new deal are broken, the companies must pay the FCC a fine of up to $2.4bn. After considering the adjustments, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said he will put in a good word to the rest of the FCC, and now thinks the merger may be in the best interest of Americans.

“This is a unique opportunity to speed up the deployment of 5G throughout the United States and bring much faster mobile broadband to rural Americans,” said Pai. “We should seize this opportunity.”

Although the FCC seems to be happier with the new arrangement, sources now claim the US Department of Justice is leaning towards denying the deal. The DOJ is worried the deal will eliminate any telecom competition, putting Americans at risk of an abuse of power by the newly merged company. Historically, both the DOJ and FCC side together on issues, so this is a unique situation for the US government. Since the annoucement of the amendments to the merger, both Sprint and T-Mobile stocks have jumped. 

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“This action arises out of Defendants collection of geolocation data and the unauthorized dissemination to third-parties of the geolocation data collected from its users cell phones,” introed one of the proposed lawsuits. “AT&T admittedly sells customer geolocation data to third-parties, including but not limited to data aggregators, who in turn, are able to use or resell the geolocation data with little or no oversight by AT&T. This is an action seeking damages for AT&T gross failure to safeguard highly personal and private consumer geolocation data in violation of federal law.”

The classes involved would include all four carriers’ customers in the US, between 2014 and 2019, totaling around 300m people. Broken down, 100m of those customers come from Verizon, another 100m from AT&T, 50m from Sprint, and the remaining 50m from T-Mobile. The classes haven’t yet released the specific amount of damages they are seeking.

The class-action lawsuits stemmed from a broken promise in 2018, when all four carriers said they would stop selling their customers real-time location data to third parties after a security breach involving Securus. It was discovered that Securus, which produced prison phones, was offering law enforcement officers a service to track almost any phone in America.

Although all four carriers claimed they immediately stopped the mining and selling of location data, in 2019 it was found that “T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are [still] selling access to their customers location data and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country.”

“The facts dont support this lawsuit, and we will fight it,” said AT&T, the only carrier involved to release a comment. “Location-based services like roadside assistance, fraud protection, and medical device alerts have clear and even life-saving benefits. We only share location data with customer consent. We stopped sharing location data with aggregators after reports of misuse.”

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Viacom has officially become the first media partner of T-Mobile’s upcoming TV service. The two companies struck a deal focused on “significant content distribution”, which will enable T-Mobile to include MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount and other Viacom brands on future mobile video services.

“Viacom represents the best of the best, most-popular brands on cable, so they are an amazing partner for us!” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “TV programming has never been better, but consumers are fed up with rising costs, hidden fees, lousy customer service, non-stop BS. And Macgyvering together a bunch of subscriptions, apps and dongles isn’t much better. That’s why T-Mobile is on a mission to give consumers a better way to watch what they want, when they want.”

The partnership between Viacom and T-Mobile comes a year after the service provider bought cable TV distributor Layer3 TV. By working with both Viacom and Layer3TV, T-Mobile has the content and distribution tools to launch its highly anticipated streaming service. The service is expected to include both live TV streaming and on-demand videos.

“We are thrilled to join forces with T-Mobile on a new entertainment service that represents an important evolution in how audiences consume our content,” said Bob Bakish, Viacom president and CEO. “Today’s landmark announcement marks a major step forward in our strategy to accelerate the presence of our brands on mobile and other next-generation platforms, and we’re so excited to partner with T-Mobile to provide millions of subscribers with access to our networks and more choice in a new service that will be unlike any other in the market.”

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