Event Driven Takeaways
- A seasoned FCC hand, Nese Guendelsberger, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, will be the point person examining a possible S/TMUS transaction, or any other deal involving a US wireless carrier. Guendelsberger has been at the agency since 2000, with long stints in the FCC’s international, wireline, and wireless bureaus. She was tapped by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in January to serve as acting Wireless Bureau chief until the new permanent bureau chief, Donald Stockdale, was selected in June.
- Guendelsberger said she will be overseeing the FCC’s merger reviews in close collaboration with the Wireless Bureau’s competition and infrastructure policy divisions. Guendelsberger spoke at a Federal Communications Bar Association event in Washington.
- Stockdale and Guendelsberger both noted their bureau will be working to fulfill the chairman’s wireless priorities, including extending wireless service to unserved, predominantly rural areas.
- With the current FCC and congressional focus on rural broadband deployment through tax incentives and other policy measures, it’s possible that merger conditions related to rural broadband buildout might be included in almost any FCC negotiation on forthcoming telecom deals.
A cohort of experienced FCC staff, some newly elevated to senior positions within the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, will be reviewing a potential Sprint/T-Mobile transaction or any other deals involving US wireless providers.
While the two most senior bureau leaders, Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale, an attorney and an economist, and Nese Guendelsberger, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, didn’t discuss the agency’s perspective on forthcoming deals at a “meet and greet” today for telecom industry lawyers and the the bureau’s new team of officials, they did underscore that they would be working to fulfill the FCC Chairman’s policy goals of extending wireless broadband service to rural and unserved areas.
Those comments may indicate that wireless companies seeking to merge may be subject to merger conditions requiring additional capex or infrastructure investment in such areas. Congress is also considering other measures to achieve that goal, notably through tax incentives, with legislation to achieve that aim, such as the Gigabit Opportunity (“Go”) Act (H.R. 2870/ S.1013) possibly being wrapped into a broader tax reform bill, should one make its way through Congress.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been banging the drum of rural wireless connectivity well before assuming the commission’s lead role, and was an original proponent of the Go Act. Pai is looking to make it easier for wireless and wireline companies to deploy infrastructure, likely issuing final rules later this year that could reduce capex costs and speed up approvals procedures nationwide, both measure that could help companies pursue synergies and cost reductions in the course of completing a transaction.
-- Lydia Beyoud