Expert Poll: A Sprint/T-Mobile Merger Unlikely To Be Approved

A rumored potential merger of the nation’s number three and number four largest wireless carriers appears unlikely to pass regulatory scrutiny based on an informal poll that included three former Federal Communications Commission chairmen and other former FCC officials.

Financial research firm Moffett Nathanson Research conducted the survey of what it called an “extraordinarily august group” of respondents after the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Sprint was considering purchasing T-Mobile. In addition to the former FCC people, respondents also included telecommunications and antitrust attorneys, telecommunications lobbyists not directly involved with the carriers, regulatory academics and antitrust scholars. “The preponderance of respondents put the probability of success at below 50%,” the researchers wrote. “But it was by no means an overwhelming or definitive majority.”