US pressuring foreign owners of the wireless carriers – Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and Japan’s Softbank – to stop using Huawei equipmentThe companies believed they had to comply before a US national security panel would approve merger
T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp believe their foreign owners’ offer to stop using Huawei Technologies equipment will help with the US clearing their US$26 billion merger deal, sources said, underscoring the lengths to which Washington has gone to shut out the Chinese company.
Like all major US wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint do not use Huawei equipment, but their majority owners, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG and Japan’s SoftBank Group Ltd, respectively, use some Huawei gear in overseas markets.
People familiar with the deal between T-Mobile and Sprint, the third and fourth largest US wireless carriers, said US government officials had been pressuring Deutsche Telekom to stop using Huawei equipment, and the companies believed they had to comply before a US national security panel would let them move forward on their deal.
Both Deutsche Telekom and Softbank were reported this week to be seeking to replace the world’s biggest network equipment maker as vendor. Now, T-Mobile and Sprint expect the US panel, called Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), to approve their deal as early as next week, the sources said.
