Below is the letter sent from CASE President Matthew Kandrach to members and staff of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, just prior to the commencement of hearings on the proposed merger between wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint. For the many reasons stated below and in our public statement, CASE offers its strongest endorsement of the planned merger.
Dear Senator,
As a national consumers organization that champions free-markets and consumer choice, we are writing to voice our strong support for the proposed merger between cellular carriers T-Mobile and Sprint, a union that will create jobs, give consumers greater choice in revolutionary 5G technology, and greatly assist our nation in maintaining its position as a global leader in digital and wireless innovation.
As you are well aware, the U.S. cellular market is currently dominated by two players, Verizon and AT&T, who now boast almost 300 million subscribers combined. Without a rigorous challenge to this duopoly, consumer choice will remain limited and future innovation will be constrained.
The T-Mobile Sprint merger is just what consumers are looking for to upend the current status quo. The combined assets of these two companies will spur $40 billion in new investment to build out a nationwide 5G network, provoking further investment from Verizon and AT&T that will move our nation’s technology forward. Further, the combined and complimentary bandwidth of T-Mobile and Sprint will create true competition in the current 4G LTE wireless market, providing the competition needed to give consumers greater choice at less cost.
New technology is the critical link to the next wave of innovations that will create hundreds of thousands of new and high-paying jobs in the technology sector. This is foundational to the next generation of products and services in travel, lifestyle, leisure, medicine, science, education, financial security and numerous ideas yet to be imagined.
As CASE further notes in the public statement we issued, the woefully underserved rural communities and small towns across our nation will benefit unequivocally by finally gaining access to the full power and opportunity of the wireless revolution.
We strongly encourage you to review all the relevant factors involved in this proposed merger and conclude, as we do, that union would be a tremendous win for consumers, serve as a spark for new innovation and jobs across our economy, and help secure America’s position as the dominant leader in global wireless technology.
Sincerely,
Matthew Kandrach – President, CASE
