T-Mobile USA had to grant the Department of Homeland Security an electronic surveillance deal--like the ones it already has with the FBI and the Justice Department--in order to gain approval for its recent acquisition of SunCom. According to a report from BetaNews, the FCC was not concerned with T-Mobile and SunCom's market share overlapping, but the deal did concern some regulators because of T-Mobile USA's foreign ownership, which led to the surveillance deal.
When T-Mobile USA was created after VoiceStream acquired Omnipoint in 2000, former FCC chairman Harold Furchtgott-Roth wrote that he was concerned that "the FBI and Justice Department continue to use our licensing process to extract concessions from licensees in exchange for this agency's approval of the transfer."
For more on the deal:
- read this document [1] from the FCC
Links:
[1] http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-46A1.pdf