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Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile

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Apr 12, 2001
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Sprint is abandoning plans to purchase T-Mobile US, reports The Wall Street Journal. According to the site, Sprint and its parent company Softbank believe it would be too hard to gain regulatory approval for the deal, with Sprint planning to make an announcement on Wednesday.
Sprint Corp. is ending its pursuit of T-Mobile US, according to people familiar with the matter. The company and its parent, SoftBank Corp. decided it simply would be too difficult to win approval from regulators, the people said.
Click to expand...
News that Sprint was working on a potential purchase of T-Mobile US first came in December of 2013, when The Wall Street Journal suggested Sprint was preparing a takeover bid. The deal, which could have been worth more than $20 billion, would have been subjected to significant regulatory scrutiny.

In fact, the United States Justice Department met with Sprint board members to discuss the deal and expressed concerns about the merger. U.S. antitrust authorities reportedly believe that having four national carriers is necessary to maintain a competitive market.

Japanese carrier Softbank purchased a 70 percent controlling interest in Sprint back in 2012, while T-Mobile is majority owned by German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom. According to Bloomberg, Sprint will also be announcing a new CEO as soon as tomorrow, as current CEO Dan Hesse is said to be out following the failed merger.

This is the second time a T-Mobile purchase has fallen through. AT&T previously attempted to acquire T-Mobile but the deal fell through after being blocked by Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.

Article Link: Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/05/sprint-abandons-plans-to-purchase-t-mobile/
HiRez

HiRez

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,250
2,576
Western US
I'm not advocating this merger, but this is the #3 and #4 merging, which would still, combined, be a lot smaller than #2, right? Why is that such a huge problem?
 
blue22

blue22

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2010
505
18
not surprising...

I don't see how this merger would've worked anyway considering how Sprint phones are CDMA based while T-Mobile is GSM based? Unless of course Sprint just wanted to buy up spectrum at the expense phasing out T-Mobile's GSM network, so I think this non-merger is a win for USA customers.

That, and I'm happy for T-Mobile remaining on it's own, they're doing good to help shake up the U.S. market. :cool:
 
nutmac

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,053
7,315
Good. And I just placed Test Drive order few minutes ago. I am on AT&T for iPhone and T-Mobile (free 200MB) for retina iPad mini. And while not terrible, T-Mobile's coverage is significantly worse than AT&T, at least as far as iPad is concerned.

I hope to be proven wrong, and I really hope that iPhone 6 will support T-Mobile's 700MHz LTE band 12.
 
IJ Reilly

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
It isn't exactly accurate to say that the merger with AT&T was "blocked" by the FCC and DoJ. The DoJ did sue on anticompetitive grounds, but at the time AT&T swore they'd prove in court that the merger would not harm competition. In the end AT&T decided to drop the merger plan, claiming that it was "blocked" by the government. But in reality they simply decided to give it up.
 
B

barkomatic

macrumors 601
Aug 8, 2008
4,520
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HiRez said:
I'm not advocating this merger, but this is the #3 and #4 merging, which would still, combined, be a lot smaller than #2, right? Why is that such a huge problem?
Click to expand...

It would be easier for three carriers to collude than four. There are three major carriers in Canada, and prices are generally higher as a result. The question is, what is Sprint going to do now? Maybe the new CEO will go all "uncarrier".
 
rumz

rumz

macrumors 65816
Feb 11, 2006
1,217
633
Utah
Only disappointing thing to me about this is that T-Mobile got such a nice boost from the AT&T merger failing ;) (money and spectrum). I didn't think this would go through but I'm fine not risking it either.

HiRez said:
I'm not advocating this merger, but this is the #3 and #4 merging, which would still, combined, be a lot smaller than #2, right? Why is that such a huge problem?
Click to expand...

Speaking for myself as a T-Mobile user (and possibly others)-- we'd rather not get stuck with Sprint (again). Left them 3 years ago and haven't looked back. I like how T-Mobile is rolling these days.
 
2

2298754

Cancelled
Jun 21, 2010
4,890
941
Meh. This would have been a good thing for Sprint. The T-Mobile network engineering crew are significantly better than the people who oversee Sprint's networks, especially in terms of deployment
 
I

iolinux333

macrumors 68000
Feb 9, 2014
1,798
73
barkomatic said:
It would be easier for three carriers to collude than four. There are three major carriers in Canada, and prices are generally higher as a result. The question is, what is Sprint going to do now? Maybe the new CEO will go all "uncarrier".
Click to expand...

That IS a good question. It would be nice if one of the super low cost European carriers took over Sprint and REALLY SHOOK UP the industry, like unlimited everything *fast* 3G for $10 a month. Places in Eastern and Northern Europe have that now. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there and tested it out myself last month. I was getting pings around 120ms and about 5Mb/s down. No caps. 8€ for 30 days.
 
S

sransari

macrumors 6502
Feb 11, 2005
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Great, now what are these pointless regulators supposed to occupy their time with?
 
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jreuschl

macrumors 6502
Dec 31, 2008
302
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As a Sprint apologist sometimes, I could have seen this being another Nextel-like disaster. I'm glad they decided against it, actually.
 
AppleScruff1

AppleScruff1

macrumors G4
Feb 10, 2011
10,026
2,949
Sprint already destroyed itself and Nextel, and they want to do the same thing to another company?
 
PocketSand11

PocketSand11

macrumors 6502a
Jun 12, 2014
688
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Good news: No merger. A merger would have strengthened the cell service oligopoly.
Bad news: Once again, we're going to have to listen to T-Mobile bragging in their ads that someone tried to buy them.

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sransari said:
Great, now what are these pointless regulators supposed to occupy their time with?
Click to expand...

Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
 
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W

Woochifer

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2007
772
56
Good!

Sprint's just as anti-consumer as Verizon, with a crappier network than T-Mobile (at least in Cali) -- worst of all worlds. As T-Mobile has rapidly ramped up their LTE coverage and continued with their aggressive "Uncarrier" moves, last I would want to see (as a T-Mobile customer) is the company basically placed into a limbo state while regulators decide whether or not to approve the merger.

They've been going pedal-to-the-metal for the past year and a half, and the results have been positive for consumers, as even customers on other carriers now have better plan options than before. I don't want to see that momentum blunted by the uncertainty of a merger.
 
J

JoeGualtieri

macrumors newbie
Mar 5, 2014
15
0
Thank God. I have T-Mobile right now, and I didn't want this merger to go through at ALL. If anything, I would've preferred T-Mobile to take over Sprint. I just couldn't see Sprint buying T-mobile after all the effort T-mo has done with the Uncarrier ever since June 2013.

For those of you complaining about coverage as of now, T-mobile is upgrading ALL 2G to the latest 4G LTE starting about a month ago. So as much as it sucks, just stick with it. At the end of this year, or earlier, hopefully your area is covered.

TEAM MAGENTA! BEST carrier in the game right now, hands down.
 
C

CEmajr

macrumors 601
Dec 18, 2012
4,450
1,230
Charlotte, NC
Looks like Dan Hesse is out too. Sprint is expected to announce a new CEO as soon as tomorrow. Reportedly he's being let go for his inability to close the T-mobile deal.

This is good news all around. Sprint and T-mobile have similar coverage so merging wouldn't exactly benefit any consumers. Now Son will have to prove his worth and turn Sprint around into a viable competitor from within.
 
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