by Robert Romano At the Feb. 13 hearing of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, the proposed merger of T-Mobile U.S., Inc. and Sprint Corporation was considered by members of Congress, with T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure testifying. By the far the biggest selling point that was offered is how a combined Sprint and T-Mobile will be able to deploy a nationwide 5G network. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) stated in his opening remarks that “5G deployment is important and valuable to consumers and the economy and whether the merger expedites 5G roll-out merits consideration.” By that measure, then, Sprint-T-Mobile is exactly what the U.S. market needs. To get to 5G, the U.S. needs to allocate a whole lot of spectrum. That is why the proposed merger is so important. It will enable T-Mobile and Sprint to share their respective 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz spectrum across the low and medium bands. As T-Mobile’s Legere noted in his testimony, “T-Mobile possesses low-band (600 MHz) spectrum, which is particularly useful for providing coverage across broad geographic areas, but has limited capacity, and high-band (mmWave) spectrum, which is useful primarily for…
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