T-Mobile and Sprint has formally filed their merger request with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The new company would be known as “New T-Mobile.”
The two carriers promise to spend $40 billion after they merge, to “deliver a robust, nationwide world-class 5G network and services sooner than otherwise possible.”
The carriers say in their filing that the merger is “necessary to accomplish a goal critical to enhancing consumer welfare in this country: the rapid and widespread deployment of 5G networks in a market structure that spurs rivals to invest in a huge increase in capacity, and, correspondingly, to drop tremendously the price of data per gigabyte.”
The companies say they will “ensure U.S. leadership in the race to 5G,” claiming the speed of 5G will provide an alternative to at-home broadband providers.
5G is scheduled to roll out later this year and over the next year. T-Mobile had already announced that it would be rolling out 5G in 30 cities by the end of 2018. For its part, Sprint had promised that its first six 5G cities will roll out in 2018.
5G likely won’t mean much to iPhone users until the fall of 2019, as Apple isn’t expected to launch 5G-compatible iPhones this fall.
T-Mobile CEO, John Legere announced the FCC filing in a post to Twitter. Legere is set to be the combines carrier’s CEO following the merger.
Sprint and T-Mobile announced their merger plans back in April, in an all-stock deal worth $26 billion. The two carriers had discussed a merger back in 2017, but the talks fell through.
The proposed merger will need to be approved by the U.S. government, as well as other foreign regulation entities such as the European Union.