The FCC has given opponents of AT&T's $39 billion bid to
buy T-Mobile until May 31 to file petitions to deny the deal.
That came in an announcement of the pleading cycle for the
commission's review of the license transfers involved in the deal and whether
they serve the public interest.
The FCC has had no sign of combining the vetting with its
review of AT&T's proposed purchase of Qualcomm spectrum, which many deal
opponents had asked it to do.
The commission set a June 10 deadline for reply comments,
with final comments due June 20.
As it has with other deal reviews--Comcast/NBCU most
recently--the commission advised that all issues should be raised in initial
comments, rather than in responses or replies. That does not foreclose new
issues so long as a showing can be made that those issues could not have been
raised previously, for example based on new, or newly discovered, facts.
