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T-Mobile acquisition of SunCom approved; T-Mobile forced to allow Department of Homeland Security snooping

By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 12:18 AM

T-Mobile SunCom dealWhen Deutsche Telekom bought up VoiceStream in 2001 to bring T-Mobile USA online, the FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) essentially forced the company to comply with regulations that would allow constant communications surveillance (presumably under the pretense of national security). Well, now that T-Mobile USA is acquiring SunCom, the merger is under renewed scrutiny by federal authorities. While the FCC wasn’t concerned over reduced competition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wasn’t going to give in to the deal without a bit of benefit on its end.

The FCC gave the T-Mobile/SunCom merger the green light, but only after the DHS was able to “convince” T-Mobile to give the agency the same monitoring powers that were granted to the FBI and DoJ. Approval of the license transfers were reportedly held-up until the 2001 agreement that allowed the FBI and DoJ to monitor communications at will was amended to grant the DHS the same powers. The deal was also intended to limit a foreign company’s influence over domestic communications.

So, T-Mobile is now good to acquire SunCom, but they also have to hand over their network communications to the Department of Homeland Security. Yea, it’s hard being a foreign wireless carrier in the US.

Take a look at the FCC documentation outlining this deal. (PDF link)

[Via: BetaNews]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

  • keeley

    thats a bunch of bullshit it’s called invasin of privacy. and becides that i was a suncom custom till about 24 hours ago have used my phone once since then and am already not happy with t-mobile.