CPUC Public Participation Hearing – Tmobile/Sprint
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time for this Past Event
- Tuesday, Jan 15, 2019 6pm - 9pm
Location
City of Fresno
2600 Fresno St
Details
On January 15 at 6pm, the Ca Public Utilties Commission will be holding a public participation hearing on the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. This is the ONLY public hearing in the northern part of the state.
The point of the hearing is to gather public input regarding the planned merger. The history of these kinds of hearings is that they are often dominated by Chamber of Commerce types and nonprofits funded by the merging companies. Your independent voice is much needed!
This merger has significant economic justice issues, especially in the prepaid phone market, where market leaders PCS Metro (Tmobile) and Boost (Sprint) would join together, leading to an insane concentration level of well over 60% that will inevitably raise prices, tighten credit requirements and make it harde, if not completely impossible, for people with poor credit and limited cash flow to use smartiphones.
The merger also will have negative effects on the Lifeline phone subsidy program and on the maverick pricing T-Mobile customers have enjoyed.The reason we have “unlimited data” plans is T-Mobile. It was not AT&T or Verizon’s idea.
We are posting this because, no offense intended, the CPUC does awful outreach. Please share with Central Valley friends. The important thing for the Commissioners to hear – from people that aren’t paid to be there – are the importance of people’s phones to them, why they are in the prepaid market, and the difficulties it might cause to face a substantial price increase with few alternatives.
Some articles that go intoa bit of depth about the merger:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/opinion/sprint-t-mobile-merger.html
Thanks so much for helping to spread the word.
