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Deutsche Telekom found to be violating foreign ownership limits with T-Mobile USA

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 12:47 PM

The FCC, in seeking to preserve homegrown competition, has reportedly found that T-Mobile USA is in violation of federal regulations that limit foreign ownership of US-based companies to 20% or less. Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company, has been served with a notice from the FCC informing them that “T-Mobile USA’s level of foreign ownership through the existing ownership structure appears to be in violation” of federal law.

T-Mobile is said to had agreed to create joint venture for rural wireless service in partnership with Verizon Wireless. The venture, Alliance Wireless, was supposed to help T-Mobile comply with federal regulations. The FCC says, however, that T-Mobile failed to properly enter into the joint venture, putting T-Mobile in violation of federal rules.

T-Mobile commented that the company is “perplexed by this,” said Kathleen Ham, vice president of federal regulatory affairs for T-Mobile. The FCC is working with T-Mobile to find a regulatory fix for the situation.

[Via: Reuters]

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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...