T-Mobile makes new promises to get approval for Sprint

T-Mobile has made three new promises in order to receive approval for its $26 billion deal to buy rival Sprint.
T-Mobile and Sprint merger
The Federal Communications Commission voted on Wednesday to approve the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. The merger, which is hanging in balance, had gained the Justice Department approval in July. The merger still faces a legal challenge from a team of state attorneys general seeking to block the deal.

T-Mobile and Sprint, the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers, aim to compete aggressively with AT&T and Verizon on 5G technology.

T-Mobile offers

Connecting Heroes Initiative is a 10-year commitment to provide free 5G access — unlimited talk, text and smartphone data — to every first responder at every public and non-profit state and local police, fire and EMS agency across the entire U.S.

Project 10Million is new program to reduce the homework gap of children by offering free service and hotspots and reduced cost devices to 10 million households around the U.S. over five years.

T-Mobile Connect is a prepaid service for $15 per month — half the price of the lowest T-Mobile plan today — to everyone.

T-Mobile is launching 5G on December 6, covering more than 200 million Americans and more than 5,000 cities and towns. Customers will be able to tap into T-Mobile’s LTE and 5G network using the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G or OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren.

“Only the New T-Mobile’s transformative 5G network will have the capacity and reach to make the bold moves we announced today that are squarely aimed at solving inequities that have huge impacts on our society,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile.

Connecting Heroes is an up to $7.7 billion commitment from T-Mobile. T-Mobile’s Project 10Million is an unprecedented $10 billion commitment.

“With the New T-Mobile, we will have the ability to drive toward real solutions to bigger pain points, with the true scale and capacity,” said Mike Sievert, president and COO of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile said it can make these commitments if the proposed T-Mobile and Sprint merger closes.

“State attorneys general who oppose the merger on antitrust grounds are concerned about its potential impact on competition and wireless service prices. However, the promises T-Mobile made today make it difficult for any regulator to continue contesting the merger,” Lynnette Luna, principal analyst at GlobalData, said.

GlobalData said 5G networks require carriers to have access to several different frequency bands in order to meet all 5G’s promises around ultra-high-speed data transmission and latency. T-Mobile has a large swathe of 600 MHz spectrum and will have access to Sprint’s highly coveted 2.5 GHz spectrum.