US telecoms giant T-Mobile has agreed to buy its rival Sprint in a $26bn (£18.9bn) deal. The merger of America's third and fourth largest mobile carriers is designed to create a more competitive firm with about 130 million customers. However, the deal is expected to attract regulatory scrutiny over its potential impact on customer prices. T-Mobile boss John Legere said the new firm would spend $40bn on building a 5G mobile network in the next three years.
"Together, we will build the highest-capacity mobile network in US history!! I'm talking 30X more capacity than T-Mobile today!!" he said in one of a series of Tweets.
It comes after months of negotiations between T-Mobile's controlling shareholder, Deutsche Telekom, and Japan's SoftBank, which controls Sprint. Under the deal, Deutsche Telekom will own 42% of the combined company and control its board. Softbank will hold a 27% stake. Mr Legere will lead the new firm which will take the T-Mobile name and have a market value of $146bn.
Analysts say the combined company would have more clout to compete with the first and second biggest US telecoms firms, Verizon and AT&T, each of which have more than 100 million subscribers.
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