CPUC Orders T-Mobile to Explain CDMA Shutdown
An order saying T-Mobile may have misled the California Public Utilities Commission is “meritless and without basis in fact,” the carrier’s spokesperson said Monday. Dish Network thinks the CPUC is right to hold T-Mobile to “commitments it made under oath…
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while its merger was under review, including that the CDMA network will be operational until July 1, 2023,” a spokesperson said. In the Friday order in docket A.18-07-011, assigned Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen and Administrative Law Judge Karl Bemesderfer required T-Mobile to appear at a Sept. 20 9:30 a.m. PDT virtual hearing to “to show cause why it should not be sanctioned” for violating a CPUC rule on “false, misleading, or omitted statements.” T-Mobile told the agency under oath that its CDMA network would be available to Boost customers until they were migrated to Dish Network's LTE or 5G network, that maintaining CDMA service during the Boost migration wouldn't affect T-Mobile's 5G buildout, that all former Sprint customers would have a seamless upgrade during migration and that Dish would have up to three years to complete the Boost migration, the order said. T-Mobile omitted or gave misleading information about PCS spectrum being used to provide service to Boost customers on the CDMA network and the same spectrum would be required for the 5G network buildout, it said. After more investigation, the CPUC might later add charges on “the early retirement of the Sprint LTE network,” the order said. T-Mobile looks “forward to presenting evidence and setting the record straight through the upcoming process,” its spokesperson said. “For months, T-Mobile has been working aggressively to ensure no customer is left behind as we transition” to 5G. DOJ earlier raised “grave concerns” about what T-Mobile soon shuttering its CDMA network may mean for Boost customers (see 2108090008). “DOJ will have the final say but it seems increasingly likely that T-Mobile will have to delay the shutdown of CDMA,” Lightshed Partners analyst Walt Piecyk emailed Monday. Dish CEO Charlie Ergen noted the CPUC show-cause order Monday at the Technology Policy Institute Forum in Aspen, Colorado (see 2108160057).