This is why wireless is so weird right now

T-Mobile recently wrapped up its $4.3 billion acquisition of UScellular, and the departure of UScellular (as we know it) comes at a weird time. 

• Weird thing No. 1: Federal Communications Commission meddling with EchoStar: Once considered an independent agency, the FCC is completely devoid of any sense of impartiality under the second Trump administration and agency Chairman Brendan Carr. The most egregious way this is playing out is in the FCC’s requirement that companies dismantle their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to obtain FCC approval for their transactions. Chairman Carr also appears determined to decide the winners and losers in the American wireless business, market dynamics be damned. The most flagrant example of this is with EchoStar and its Dish Network and Boost Mobile brands. Recall that Carr sent a letter to EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen in May accusing EchoStar of warehousing spectrum and threatening to take it away, causing EchoStar to go into a tailspin and teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.
• Weird thing No. 2: Disregard for No. 4: This isn’t the first time the industry has wrestled with the question of whether there should be three or four wireless carriers. That was a big question back in 2011 when AT&T tried to acquire T-Mobile. It came up again when T-Mobile was in the process of acquiring Sprint during the first Trump administration in 2019. But apparently none of that matters because, according to Chairman Carr, there is “no magic number” as to how many carriers the U.S. needs in order to have a competitive wireless industry. 
• Weird thing No. 3: The D2D obsession: Everybody’s piling onto the next big shiny thing and today that’s the direct-to-device market for satellite coverage direct to everyday smartphones. That includes the embattled EchoStar, which is now looking at D2D to save its soul.