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Before T-Mobile buys its assets, appeals court ruling allows UScellular to build another cell tower

By Alan Friedman

Published: Feb 15, 2025, 1:43 PM

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UScellular wins an appeal court decision allowing it to build a cell tower in Fond du Lac.

T-Mobile agreed last May to buy the customers, spectrum, and other network assets belonging to UScellular, the nation's fifth-largest wireless carrier. The price that T-Mobile agreed to pay was $4.4 billion in cash and assumed debt. The deal is expected to close in the middle of this year once the deal receives regulatory approval. Not everyone wants to see the deal close such as the the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The union filed a Petition to Deny with the FCC seeking to block the deal from closing.

UScellular is given the approval to build a cell tower in Fond du Lac County thanks to an appeals court decision

The CWA wants the FCC to request that the terms of the deal include an enforceable measure to protect employees who work in wireless retail stores. The union is afraid that once T-Mobile closes on its acquisition of UScellular assets, competition in markets covered by UScellular will be reduced hurting consumers, workers, and other rural carriers. Consumers, for example, could face higher prices if competition is reduced in certain markets.

The inside of a T-Mobile store. The deal with UScellular will give T-Mobile more customers and network assets. | Image credit-T-Mobile

Thanks to a technicality, UScellular has been given permission by an appeals court to build a cell tower in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. The carrier argued that the town of Fond du Lac, in denying its permit to build the cell tower, did not follow the rules in doing so. As a result, the wireless provider said that it should receive the permit by default. The appeals court agreed with UScellular.

The story started in April 2023 when UScellular made a deal with a landowner and requested a conditional-use permit (CUP) for the property. The town had 90 days to respond. After holding meetings and accepting public comments, the town of Fond du Lac denied UScellular's request following a voice vote. An attorney for the town explained that UScellular "failed to establish that the new tower was reasonably necessary for the public convenience at that location."

The technicality takes place here when UScellular failed to receive the written copy of the town's decision and the written minutes from the town's board meeting failed to appear on the Fond du Lac website. Two weeks after the deadline passed, the carrier said that the application to build the cell tower had been approved by default. But the town failed to hand over a permit and was taken to court by UScellular.

Originally, a circuit court ruled in favor of Fond du Lac County and said that the carrier knew its request had been denied. As proof, the town pointed out that UScellular titled its filing "Appeal of Town of Fond du Lac’s Denial of U.S. Cellular Conditional Use Permit." But the appeals court saw things a little differently noting that the town had four simple steps it had to take: review the application, make a decision, notify the applicant in writing, and identify the evidence that led to a permit’s rejection. The failure of the town to follow each step, especially the last two, led the court of appeals to overturn the circuit court decision.

The ruling says, "US Cellular is entitled to approval of its CUP application by operation of law based on [the law’s] plain language. The carrier says that building its own cell tower in

Fond du Lac instead of having to lease space on a competitor's tower will save it $2.4 million. This shouldn't have much impact on the T-Mobile-UScellular deal since the latter will retain ownership of 4,400 cell towers. T-Mobile will lease space on 2,100 of the towers kept by UScellular and will be the anchor tenant on 2,000 of the towers for 15 years.

If the deal closes, it will improve T-Mobile's network capacity and coverage, and expand the number of potential customers for T-Mobile's home 5G internet service which we suspect was the big reason why T-Mobile decided to do the transaction. It also improves coverage in rural areas and helps UScellular customers obtain improved wireless service at a lower price.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.