Several government agencies have given T-Mobile and Sprint the approval they need to move forward with their merger plans.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice have all agreed to the deal, valued at $26.5 billion. In order to appease these agencies, T-Mobile and Sprint’s parent organizations, Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank, respectively, have said they’ll reconsider their use of equipment from Chinese supplier Huawei. Huawei has long been branded a security risk by U.S. lawmakers.
The combined company will have about 100 million customers, putting it on more even ground with AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
The deal still needs to win the approval of the FCC and FTC. T-Mobile expects the deal to close during the first half of 2019.
