Sprint purchase of Nextel wins U.S. approval
Reuters
Wed Aug 3, 2005 5:48 PM ET
http://today.reuters.com/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=313923+03-Aug-2005+RTRS&special=true
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Sprint Corp. <FON.N> on Wednesday won
approval from U.S. authorities to acquire Nextel Communications Inc.
<NXTL.O> to solidify its spot as the No. 3 U.S. wireless company.
The Federal Communications Commission said it had unanimously voted to
approve the $36 billion deal while the Justice Department's antitrust
division closed its investigation without raising any objections.
The FCC included one condition on the deal, requiring the new company to
abide by commitments to begin offering service in the 2.5 Gigahertz (GHz)
band within four years.
The new company, to be named Sprint Nextel, plans to offer high-speed
wireless Internet services with those airwaves.
The FCC said the deal would lead to enhanced service quality and further
deployment of advanced wireless services. The Justice Department said the
deal would not harm competition in the wireless industry.
Sprint Nextel plans to spin off Sprint's local telephone business assets
into a separate company and the FCC said it had received assurances the new
company would receive an equitable debt and asset allocation.
The deal had widespread support since it was seen as bolstering the
company's prospects to compete against the two larger wireless carriers,
Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, which have backing from large local
telephone companies.
Consumer advocates had sought to block the deal, complaining about how much
wireless spectrum the combined company would hold, particularly since they
together hold a significant portion of the licenses for the 2.5 GHz band.
The two companies said on Monday they have voluntarily agreed to offer
service in that band to at least 15 million consumers within four years and
at least 30 million consumers within six years.
The commitments by Nextel and Sprint did include caveats, including one
that would allow them to miss milestones because of circumstances beyond
their control, such as unforeseen technological impediments or the failure
of technology standards being set.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post.
_______________________________________________
MEDIANEWS mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
