Lycamobile asks US government for help against T-Mobile

Lycamobile is asking the FCC and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to intervene in its fight against T-Mobile.

"T-Mobile's actions towards Lycamobile raise concerns of anticompetitive conduct," the MVNO wrote in a new filing to the FCC.

Importantly, Lycamobile recently told some top FCC officials that, after T-Mobile closed its purchase of Mint Mobile in May, T-Mobile engaged in additional unfair business practices. Lycamobile hinted that T-Mobile is in part using Mint Mobile to pursue the same kinds of customers that Lycamobile itself is pursuing. However, the details of many of Lycamobile's claims were redacted in its FCC filing.

"The totality of T-Mobile's conduct points to an attempt to lessen competition in the MVNO space – consistent with [T-Mobile's] incentive and ability to do so," Lycamobile told the FCC. "Ultimate consequence is less competitive discipline on market participants, leading to higher prices and/or lower quality for consumers."

For its part, Lycamobile counts roughly 16 million mobile customers globally across more than a dozen countries. It entered the US market through an MVNO with T-Mobile in 2012, but today it only counts around 542,000 customers in the US.

An ongoing battle

As Light Reading previously reported, the fight between Lycamobile and T-Mobile stretches back to 2022, when T-Mobile filed a lawsuit against Lycamobile.

In its lawsuit, T-Mobile claims it accidentally undercharged Lycamobile for more than a year of MVNO access to its network – and that Lycamobile should have caught it.

Lycamobile has a different take on the situation. The London-based MVNO argues that T-Mobile has been unwilling to renegotiate its agreement with Lycamobile. That court case remains ongoing.

The fight between Lycamobile and T-Mobile accelerated dramatically in April 2024. That's when Lycamobile took its complaints against T-Mobile public in an effort to block T-Mobile's proposed $1.3 billion acquisition of Mint Mobile and its estimated 3 million customers.

However, Lycamobile's complaints against T-Mobile were filed well after the FCC's comment deadline for T-Mobile's Mint Mobile transaction. The agency approved T-Mobile's purchase of Mint Mobile in late April, and T-Mobile closed the deal on May 1.

In its latest FCC filing, Lycamobile argues that T-Mobile is using its purchase of Mint Mobile to put further pressure on Lycamobile in the US.

No stranger to controversy

This isn't Lycamobile's first brush with regulators.

For example, according to a Financial Times article from late last year, a court in Paris convicted Lycamobile's French operations of tax fraud and money laundering. Some top company officials were also issued jail sentences. But, according to the article, Lycamobile was appealing the convictions.

Moreover, Lycamobile's operations in other countries have faced similar charges. Indeed, the company's Wikipedia page lists tax evasion and money laundering allegations in Germany, India and Norway, citing local reports from those locations.

In the US, though, Lycamobile remains a relatively smaller player. It's also competing in a market that's awash with new faces. Over the past few months, new MVNOs from the likes of Mediacom, Punkt, Linkup Mobile and Helium Mobile have hit the US wireless market.