Americans for Limited Government (ALG) is urging the House Commerce Committee to investigate anti-competitive effects of Comcast's buy of NBCUniversal, saying it expects the end result likely will be either a Comcast/NBCU breakup or reimposing the FCC conditions that expired in January (see 1801220030). In a letter to committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Vice Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, dated Monday and released Thursday, ALG said at the very least, Comcast/NBCU should be forced to submit to the same arbitration terms that AT&T has committed to in its buy of Time Warner. Comcast didn't comment.

Fox won't make a counteroffer for Sky and said Wednesday it instead will accept Comcast's offer for its 39 percent of the company. It said Comcast's bid for Sky values Fox's minority stake at more than $15 billion. Comcast and Fox were in a bidding war until Sky's independent committee accepted a Comcast auction bid made over the weekend (see 1809240056).

T-Mobile said Sunit Patel is joining as executive vice president-merger and integration lead. “Patel will lead T-Mobile’s strategic planning efforts to integrate its business with Sprint as the two companies work through the necessary regulatory reviews and other closing conditions to combine,” T-Mobile said Monday. Patel leaves CenturyLink, where he was chief financial officer. He will report to T-Mobile President Mike Sievert.

Disney/Fox will likely shed its Sky stake, but Hulu's fate is unclear, said analysts after Comcast's $40 billion auction bid over the weekend that was accepted by Sky's independent committee (see here). Comcast will likely follow up with deal that has it buying the rest of Sky from Disney/Fox "for the same stupendous price," and possibly as part of a swap where Disney takes Comcast's stake in Hulu, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote Monday. He downgraded Comcast stock to neutral. He said Sky could be "an albatross" for Comcast given its satellite TV business and that satellite video distribution "is increasingly becoming obsolete." He said expanding Sky's nascent over-the-top business will be a challenge, with a variety of programmers going direct to consumer, meaning Comcast will have to ramp up creation of its own video content. BTIG's Richard Greenfield wrote investors Monday that given cord-cutting and cord-shaving trends, Disney/Fox and Comcast/Sky are "actually depressing" examples of legacy media staying locked in a comfort zone. He said Disney/Fox will likely tender its Sky stake as part of Comcast's offer to Sky shareholders since there's not an obvious strategic benefit to Disney/Fox remaining an investor in Sky. The analyst said Disney wants Comcast's Hulu stake, but Comcast isn't likely to sell since it can thus prevent Hulu from becoming a Disney-branded OTT service. He said with the Sky deal, Comcast is signaling that a deal for Charter Communications seems unlikely and that U.S. expansion isn't a priority. Instead, Discovery could be the next acquisition target for Comcast given Discovery's investments in Europe in recent years, Greenfield said. Comcast plans to keep its stake in Hulu, an informed person said. U.K. M&A rules are such that it couldn't make a side deal with Disney to sell its portion, the person noted. Comcast didn't comment. The company closed down 6 percent at $35.63.

The U.S. District Court that permitted AT&T buying Time Warner "well understood" the flawed economics behind DOJ's bargaining theory that was the basis for its opposing the deal, the now-combined companies said in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit appellee brief (in Pacer, docket 18-5214) Thursday. It was empirical evidence, such as analyses of prior comparable transactions, not a misunderstanding of business principles, that caused the lower court to reject DOJ's argument, the companies said. They said it was "fatal" to DOJ's case that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington accepted Justice's bargaining model but found the agency hadn't shown the model actually predicts a net increase in retail prices. The merged parties said among the model's flaws is that it relied on "highly disputed real-world facts" like how many customers would go to a different MVPD if certain programming were dropped and that the agency sometimes relied on flawed figures. DOJ didn't comment. Justice's appeal -- based largely on the argument Leon's decision was flawed in its handling of the economics of bargaining and its application of the idea of corporatewide profit maximization -- is seen facing dicey odds (see 1808070025).

The FCC invited pleadings on Sapphire Intermediate Holdings' planned takeover of Smart City Holdings indirect subsidiaries: Smart City Telecommunications, Smart City Solutions, Smart City Networks, Smart City of Washington D.C. and Convention Communications Provisioners. Comments are due Oct. 2, replies Oct. 9, said a Wireline Bureau public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest and docket 18-268. The smart city subsidiaries are an ILEC in Florida and competitive telecom providers in Florida; North Carolina; Nevada; Washington, D.C.; and Washington state.

A team of mostly T-Mobile executives met with FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel to present the case for it buying Sprint, said a filing posted Monday docket 18-197. The deal will create the “only company with incentive and ability to build first broad and deep nationwide 5G network,” said a slide deck: “New T-Mobile will bring revolutionary consumer experience with unmatched speed and latency” and “accelerate significant industry-wide investment in 5G.” The deal will create $43.6 billion in synergies, the companies said. Among attendees were T-Mobile's Neville Ray, chief technology officer; Peter Ewens, executive vice president-corporate strategy; and David Miller, general counsel. Sprint was represented by Charles McKee, vice president-government affairs. Replies were due a Monday, in response to oppositions filed last month (see 1808280038). “The promise of a robust, nationwide 5G network cannot be ignored,” said Citizens Against Government Waste. “Expect the usual outcry from those who believe that competition of three is anti-competitive, and the wireless marketplace requires a fourth competitor. … The ill-conceived notion of the proper number of competitors does not hold up in today’s converging telecommunications ecosystem.” The Free State Foundation also supported the deal. “Although some commenters have argued that the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger would harm competition by reducing the number of nationwide mobile wireless providers from four to three, competitive conditions in the market and facts specific to the merger support a contrary conclusion," FSF said. "Sprint’s recent financial history and analysts’ projections reveal that a standalone Sprint would likely be less competitive and perhaps not even viable in the 5G era." The Latino Coalition said the deal is in its members’ best interest. It “promises to expand access to high-quality broadband and deliver a super-charged network that will create additional opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation,” the coalition commented. The Bellevue, Washington, Chamber of Commerce, in T-Mobile’s headquarters city, said the deal means thousands of new jobs. The Kansas Chamber, where Sprint is based, filed in support.

State attorneys general should do antitrust investigations of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint, the Communications Workers of America said. “If the merger is permitted as proposed, it will result in massive job losses across the county,” CWA President Chris Shelton wrote in a Sept. 10 letter to AGs sent to us Friday. State AGs from Alabama, Connecticut, Hawaii, Mississippi, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia are investigating the proposed deal, said letters to the FCC Wireless Bureau posted last week in docket 18-197. Like California and New York AGs earlier, they sought access to confidential numbering resource utilization and forecast and local number portability data (see 1809040033). Friday, T-Mobile didn't comment. Sprint is having a "positive dialog" with regulators about its planned takeover, its CEO said (see 1809140023).

Comcast again pushed out the deadline for Sky shareholders to weigh in on its bid for takeover, now to Oct. 6, it said Wednesday. The company last month extended the August deadline to Wednesday (see 1808220054). Comcast said it's received acceptances representing 0.29 percent of ordinary share capital.

The FCC Tuesday paused the unofficial 180-day shot clock on its review of T-Mobile buying Sprint. The FCC cited a “substantially revised" and more complex network engineering model T-Mobile submitted Sept. 5 and a business model T-Mobile executives described on Aug. 29 but didn't disclose until Sept. 5. T-Mobile has also promised additional economic modeling it has yet to file, said a letter from Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale and David Lawrence, director of the task force reviewing the deal. "The clock will remain stopped until the Applicants have completed the record on which they intend to rely and a reasonable period of time has passed for staff and third-party review." The two companies released a joint statement. "We appreciate that the FCC is taking the time necessary to fully understand the merits," the companies said. "The additional review time is common to FCC merger reviews and we recently supplied a large amount of data to the FCC that they want sufficient time to assess. We are confident that this transaction is pro-competitive, good for the country and good for American consumers, and we look forward to continuing to work with the FCC as they evaluate our plans." The Wireless Bureau meanwhile asked for data from Verizon, as part of the agency’s ongoing analysis of the deal. The bureau said in a Monday letter in Tuesday's Daily Digest and docket 18-197 it may seek other information. AT&T officials said they were called in by the FCC to discuss the company’s “5G deployment plans” relative to the deal. The bureau also requested data from AT&T and from U.S. Cellular (see here and here). Also Tuesday, T-Mobile said it signed a multiyear, $3.5 billion contract with Ericsson to support the carrier's nationwide deployment of 5G. “Ericsson will provide T-Mobile with the latest 5G New Radio hardware and software compliant with 3GPP standards,” T-Mobile said. “The contract also encompasses Ericsson’s digital services solutions, including dynamic orchestration, business support systems (BSS) and Ericsson Cloud Core, enabling T-Mobile to rapidly launch innovative and groundbreaking 5G experiences.”