T-Mobile Asks CPUC to Modify Jobs, Other Buy Conditions

T-Mobile is playing fast and loose with job promises related to buying Sprint, Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton responded Tuesday to the carrier's challenge of the California Public Utilities Commission’s mid-April conditional OK. Two consumer advocacy groups joined the union in slamming T-Mobile’s Monday petition in docket A.18-07-011 to modify conditions on jobs, speeds and deployment. The request follows reported layoffs at the carrier. Continued fighting between T-Mobile and the CPUC might portend litigation over state wireless authority (see 2005010048).

Requiring T-Mobile to add 1,000 jobs “is inconsistent with regulatory authority, not supported by the record, and burdensome, especially in light of the economic disruption created by the COVID-19 crisis,” the carrier said. T-Mobile said it promised to keep the same number of employees for three years. Requiring T-Mobile to comply with the CPUC’s CalSpeed program, in addition to testing by the FCC and California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), “undermines regulatory certainty, clarity, and efficiency and is otherwise unnecessarily duplicative, burdensome, and inconsistent with the record,” it said. The order mistakenly required T-Mobile to provide 300 Mbps average speeds to 93% of California by 2024; it should say 2026, based on the record, the carrier said.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert brushed away layoffs last week as “just part of the transition process” and said “T-Mobile would create 5,000 new positions in retail and engineering in the next year,” CWA’s Shelton said in a statement to us. “Today we find out that behind the scenes the company is telling California regulators that it can’t meet its commitment to create 1,000 jobs in the next three years," Shelton said. "It turns out that the new T-Mobile is a lot like the old T-Mobile -- all talk no action.” The carrier didn’t comment Tuesday.

T-Mobile shouldn’t get a “do-over” because the record supports all three conditions and the agency has jurisdiction to hold the company to them, said The Utility Reform Network Managing Director-San Diego Christine Mailloux. The CPUC earlier revised its broadband buildout timeline in response to T-Mobile comments but rejected other claims, she said. The petition is “procedurally improper,” said Mailloux. T-Mobile should have filed a petition for reconsideration but missed that deadline, she said. The TURN official said it’s “ironic” the request comes after the company announced layoffs.

CETF agrees 2026 should be the deadline for the 300 Mbps requirement, since the CPUC didn’t rule until April, emailed the group’s special counsel Rachelle Chong: “The 5G milestones should be adjusted to allow for the full three year and five year 5G construction benchmarks.” CETF, which supported the deal after signing a pact with the carrier, has no position on the other two issues raised by the carrier, said the former CPUC and FCC commissioner.

“T-Mobile has been working cooperatively with CETF beginning immediately after the close of the merger in California to determine what changes need to be made in our Memorandum of Understanding due to certain ordering paragraphs in the CPUC's final decision,” noted Chong. They’re talking about “ensuring that the California LifeLine program and affordable broadband offers for low-income persons are fully implemented, given that the final CPUC decision ordered different LifeLine goals than the CETF MOU,” she said.

"If the claims T-Mobile made in support of the merger are true, there's no reason that the company can't meet the conditions that the CPUC set in its original decision," emailed Greenlining Institute Technology Equity Director Paul Goodman. "The petition is a blatant attempt to water down conditions which we already know will be insufficient to protect consumers."

Consumer advocates sought rehearing of the CPUC decision last month, citing concerns about competition, 5G deployment and public safety (see 2005080041). The petition remains pending, not unusual since the CPUC tends to take a few months to review such requests, said Mailloux.

Expect the “real action” to occur in court once the CPUC challenge process wraps, said Tellus Venture Associates President Steve Blum, a consultant for local governments: “The CPUC rarely reverses a decision, particularly one as well chewed as this one.” The agency might consider editing the 300 Mbps speed benchmark “but T-Mobile isn't saying anything new” about the jobs or speed-testing issues, he said.