The Hill News

The FCC may be starting to wish it hadn’t released that draft report critical of AT&T’s application to merge with T-Mobile USA after all.

Analysts, legal scholars, and economists have already uncovered plenty of reasons to question the quality of the staff’s analysis of the deal, which was never voted on by the Commissioners.  That is, other than Chairman Julius Genachowski, who released it even after the parties withdrew their application to concentrate on an upcoming antitrust trial.

Now another disturbing irregularity has turned up, this time hiding in a footnote.  It seems the report’s strongly-worded recommendation to reject the deal is based in large part on fudging one of two preliminary calculations the agency uses to start its merger reviews:  the spectrum screen.

Read more...