FCC Approves SoftBank buyout of Sprint

Softbank has cleared one of the last hurdles in the process of buying out Sprint. Recently, the FCC has officially approved the Japanese mobile giant, SoftBank, to purchase Sprint. In addition, in a double round of buyouts, the FCC also approved Sprint’s buyout of ClearWire, meaning that SoftBank has bought out two companies at the same time.

This just comes a week after Sprint shareholders gave the approval for the buyout of Sprint, and a couple of weeks after the US Department of Justice gave their approval. Though the public gave their approval in the buyout of Sprint, there were some issues progressing to the buyout of the company. In the recent months, Dish, who was trying to find a way into the mobile market, made aggressive offers to buy out Sprint and Clearwire. In addition, Congress expressed concerns that SoftBank would use Chinese networking equipment, but SoftBank made a promise not to use Chinese equipment upon agreeing in the deal.

FCC Chairwoman, Mignon Clyburn, and FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai, gave statements supporting the approval of the deal. Clyburn said, in a statement, that the deal will “serve the public interest” and would “accelerate the deployment of mobile broadband services and enhance competition”.

Looking into the future, it looks like SoftBank will not have any more issues in the buyout of Sprint and ClearWire. In a statement, Sprint says that “this decision completes all Federal government reviews” and will expect to complete the rest of the process by early July.