T-Mobile told the FCC that its proposed deal for UScellular spectrum and customers will help UScellular blunt cable modem competition, particularly in rural areas.
T-Mobile argues that cable's pivot into the mobile market spells trouble for UScellular and that T-Mobile's move to acquire UScelluar's spectrum and customers for $4.4 billion will help the carrier generate more scale and develop service bundles that will help it better compete with cable's incursion.
That was just one of several reasons T-Mobile outlined on why it believes regulators should approve the UScellular transaction. UScellular has 4.5 million customers in parts of 21 states, with about 40% of it in rural areas.
"Cable companies' entry into the wireless market has been particularly threatening to UScellular," T-Mobile said in a redacted public interest statement (PDF) to the FCC that was first spotted by PolicyBand's Ted Hearn. "Unlike UScellular, cable companies enjoy significant advantages provided by substantial margins on their traditional wireline and video offerings, bundling wireless together with wireline Internet, video, and other services. Cable companies also benefit by offloading more mobile wireless traffic onto their own Wi-Fi networks than traditional MNOs. These significant advantages have allowed cable wireless providers to offer plans with rates lower than UScellular's."
T-Mobile argued that cable's mobile moves have had a "marked effect" on UScellular. T-Mobile said cable operators have increased their share of mobile subs in UScellular's footprint from 2020 to 2024, but the precise percentage gain was redacted. That number "will continue to grow due to additional expansion and entry by cable and fiber bundlers," T-Mobile insisted.
Cable's mobile moves into rural a work in progress
US cable operators have been getting aggressive with convergence offerings that combine home broadband with mobile services that rely on MVNO deals that are being paired with Wi-Fi offload. However, cable's mobile offerings in relatively rural areas of the country, including in markets served by UScellular, are somewhat limited.
Comcast and Charter Communications do have some rural properties in their respective footprints, but the number of smaller, more rurally-focused cable operators with mobile offerings is still small.
The National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) is helping tier 2/3 cable operators build mobile into the bundle via its agreements with AT&T and Reach. TVS Cable, Breezeline, Shurz Communications and Allo Communications have launched or plan to launch mobile services based on the NCTC pacts. Several other NCTC cable operator members are being onboarded onto those agreements or are studying them for possible future mobile launches.
T-Mobile also called out EchoStar, which is building its own national 5G network and today offers mobile under the Boost brand, as a threat to UScellular and another reason why regulators should approve the transaction.
Fueling FWA
T-Mobile also believes the spectrum it will acquire from the UScellular transaction will shore up its ability to offer home broadband using fixed wireless access (FWA) technology.
"The transaction will ... expand T-Mobile's fixed wireless service offering and thereby increase competition for in-home broadband services. This will be particularly important for bringing increased competition and choice to rural areas," T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile said the deal will provide it with more capacity for FWA and increase the overall number of households that can be supported by its home Internet services, but the anticipated amounts also were redacted in the filing.
Home broadband is a major growth driver for T-Mobile, which now has 5.58 million FWA subs. By comparison, UScellular ended Q2 with just 134,000.
More generally, T-Mobile believes the deal will boost network capacity, drive higher speeds and reduce congestion in the UScellular footprint.
T-Mobile also argued that its planned sale of 800MHz and a portion of its 3.45GHz spectrum will ensure T-Mobile will not exceed the FCC's "spectrum screen or the low-band trigger for enhanced competitive review."
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