Verizon and T-Mobile are trying to gobble up US Cellular

Now that they’ve sewage an other $100 cardinal worthy of premium airwaves and Sprint nary longer nipping astatine their heels, really tin nan large 3 cellular carriers proceed to consolidate and grow? Well, T-Mobile and Verizon “are successful discussions to carve up U.S. Cellular,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

The study suggests this is astir harvesting moreover much wireless spectrum; my workfellow Allison pointed retired successful 2022 that US Cellular “tends to connection work wherever immoderate of nan awesome carriers don’t.” (It would surely beryllium bully for T-Mobile and Verizon customers to person amended coverage, but I would for illustration title to little my wireless bill.)

T-Mobile would reportedly salary complete $2 cardinal for wireless spectrum licenses and return complete “some operations;” nan WSJ doesn’t opportunity what Verizon wants, but says US Cellular “also owns much than 4,000 cellular towers that weren’t portion of nan latest waste talks.”

The thought down splitting up US Cellular betwixt T-Mobile and Verizon, nan WSJ suggests, is to support antitrust regulators from blocking nan deal. Regulators coiled up letting T-Mobile merge pinch Sprint aft promises that it would move Dish into a caller 4th awesome US cellular carrier, but last we checked, Dish had yet to go a meaningful competitor.