Back to the Future: The Asia-Pacific Tipline for 10 May 2019

Two may be company and three a crowd, but Australia’s antitrust watchdog is in search of a fourth mobile network provider – and it is willing to go to court to put the brakes on a merger in the hope that another operator will emerge, and future competition be protected. Halfway around the world, mobile carriers T-Mobile and Sprint are trying to push their merger past the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division. These telecommunications tie-ups have raised the question: what is the right number of wireless networks in a competitive market?