Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile

[Nxtphase]

Whew!

Let T-Mobile continue to innovate
and shake up the industry......
My mobile bill is the lowest it has
ever been with TMO, and I have an
interest free loan on my IPhone.
What's not to like!
P.S, I switched from Sprint!🙂

 

[xmichaelp]

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?

T-mobile has a very nice 30 dollar plan. They'd probably scrap it. T-mobile seems like the only likable carrier to me.

 

[duckyforlife]

Now WHEN and HOW can I unlock my iPhone 5s to use on ATT or T-Mobile or VERIZON?

I know it's technically possible, but HOW???

I believe the 5s was the first iPhone to be compatible with all carriers, GSM or CDMA (someone correct me if I'm wrong). So it doesn't matter who you are paying it monthly to or who you bought it from originally. As long as you pay it off, and have had it at least 40 days, call your carrier's Customer Service line and request to have them unlock it.

 

[scaredpoet]

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,

If you look at Sprint's past merger history (Nextel, Velocita Wireless - formerly Cingular Interactive, Clearwire), that's pretty much been their strategy: buy up the company for its spectrum assets and plan to "integrate" the two networks (which usually means shut the other network down). Their history has also been very disastrous for these kinds of mergers: Nextel was a complete, multi-year fiasco; Velocita ended up getting sold off to someone else right away; Clear is taking forever to be shut down.

If Sprint/Softbank management had any intelligence at all, they would've bought T-Mobile and used their GSM network to migrate CDMA customers off and shut down CDMA, then merge the two LTE networks. But Sprint and intelligence are words that don't belong the same sentence. Their pride would've likely driven them to stupidly shut down the GSM/UMTS network and driven off those customers, because no one on T-Mobile would likely accept downgrading to CDMA.

so I think this non-merger is a win for USA customers.

Absolutely. While I can buy the argument that a strong third carrier is necessary to counter AT&T/Verizon, ANY company with Sprint involved would NOT be that third strong carrier. Sprint is toxic; it kills everything it touches.

T-Mobile would be better off growing organically (which it has no problem doing), and Sprint can go die off as it should've done years ago, leaving maybe C-Spire and US cellular to pick at the remains and grow a little themselves.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You're too smart for your own good. The deal
Would have gone through w/o govt sueing. ATT internally decided they would lose the case in court (or I'd cost too much money) so they dropped it. In effect they were blocked.

Not really, no. Of course if the government had no competition concerns none would have been raised, but that argument is just double-talk. These sorts of issues are raised frequently with large mergers, but they are generally resolved, as it was expected they would be in this case as well. AT&T gave up instead. This merger being "blocked" is simply repeating an AT&T talking point, and not a true account of what actually happened.

Not that many around here will notice or care, the distinctions being somewhat subtle. MR writes with that sort of audience in mind.

----------

Because they knew they wouldn't have won approval. I can't say why, but I know.

If you look at their financial penalties for the deal falling through you can pretty much see that they would have pushed ahead had they thought they had a chance.

They had a chance, they simply decided not to take it. They could not possibly have been shocked by the government's concerns, and if they were, they can only blame their own failures of due diligence.

 

[agalenko]

A BIG WIN for TMobile customers (and for me)! Love Tmobile free unlimited international sms and data (even if it is not LTE). They definitely push industry in the right direction.

 

[AdonisSMU]

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.

In NYC T-Mobile is way faster than AT&T for data usage. If coverage is an issue you go with AT&T and VZN. If you want high data speeds, you get service from T-Mobile.

----------

Thanks to T-Mobile AT&T dropped my bill $200/mo.

----------

Great, now what are these pointless regulators supposed to occupy their time with?

Darn liberulz getting in the way of big business!

 

[CEmajr]

Brightstar's Marcelo Claure is expected to be named the new Sprint CEO

http://recode.net/2014/08/05/sprint-to-name-brightstars-marcelo-claure-as-ceo/

 

[verpeiler]

Great, now what are these pointless regulators supposed to occupy their time with?

What is pointless about regulation of big companies? IMHO it's mandatory.

 

[skellener]

Very happy about this. Now they need to block the Comcast -TWC merger and break them both up and force them to compete in local areas. Oh and block the ATT - DirecTV merger as well.

 

[kenroberts83]

Not really, no. Of course if the government had no competition concerns none would have been raised, but that argument is just double-talk. These sorts of issues are raised frequently with large mergers, but they are generally resolved, as it was expected they would be in this case as well. AT&T gave up instead. This merger being "blocked" is simply repeating an AT&T talking point, and not a true account of what actually happened.

Not that many around here will notice or care, the distinctions being somewhat subtle. MR writes with that sort of audience in mind.

----------



They had a chance, they simply decided not to take it. They could not possibly have been shocked by the government's concerns, and if they were, they can only blame their own failures of due diligence.

This is a bunch of nonsense. Fighting antitrust suits can cost a lot of money, and can result in significant negative publicity. Both mergers would have proceeded without government intervention. It is absolutely correct to say that they were "blocked" by the government.

To use an analogy, let's say that the state uses civil forfeiture to seize $1000 worth of my assets. I call a lawyer and determine that it will cost $2000 for me to successfully fight the case in court. I subsequently decide that it is not worth the cost. Does the government now bear no responsibility for what happened? Of course not. Their actions directly led to this result, for good or bad.

 

[D-Dave]

I don't know exactly why... but I'm sure you can look it up.

All I know is... they've been trying since 2011.

As far as I have read, DT wants to sell T-Mobile US to fund some heavy investments in it's european infrastructure (both landlines and wireless)

 

[mattwallace24]

Well, for two reasons, TMob was losing money hand over fist and had no prospects for relevancy. But under Legere, customer base is growing, service improving, lots of buzz, and an actual profit recently....

They really aren't going in the right direction on profitability or sustainable cash flow which is a drain on DT. Once you back the one-time, non-cash gain of $731 million from their spectrum license transactions with Verizon out of their 2nd quarter results, they lost $340M for the quarter. Their results show their recurring losses are accelerating with this strategy. While their strategy is great for gaining subscribers, is great for consumers, and getting attention for their brand, it is not great financially for DT.

With T-Mobile's increasing investment in their network, higher subscriber acquisition costs, and lower ARPU, this formula clearly favors the consumer over their owner. At some point they either have to cut huge costs out of their business (e.g. lower customer support, lower network investments, reduce promotions or customer acquisition costs, etc) or raise their ARPU in order to get cash flow positive and profitable. The question is can they then keep their subscriber gains with any combination of these actions.

 

[velocityg4]

If Deutsche Telekom wants to sell T-Mobile so badly. Why don't they just sell all their shares on the stock market and let T-Mobile be it's own corporate entity?

 

[HyperZboy]

If you mean a Sprint 5s, then you are wrong. When is never. How, is not possible.

International unlock only. Domestic, never. Any third party offering an unlock is either for international use or a fake.

But if you really want an "unlock", get a SIM interposer. Gevey or R-Sim.

I understand that SPRINT is going to continue to refuse to unlock it, but I also understand that outside of programming, all iPhone 5s phones have the same CDMA/GSM transmitter capabilities both domestically & abroad.

So I find it hard to believe no one will come up with a way to completely unlock SPRINT/Virgin Mobile USA iPhones. There should be no physical reason inside the phone to make their version different or completely prevent it.

I think a lot of people including the members of Congress who wrote the bill are are to be sadly surprised that their bill still won't allow them to unlock their own SPRINT iPhones after all.

----------

I believe the 5s was the first iPhone to be compatible with all carriers, GSM or CDMA (someone correct me if I'm wrong). So it doesn't matter who you are paying it monthly to or who you bought it from originally. As long as you pay it off, and have had it at least 40 days, call your carrier's Customer Service line and request to have them unlock it.

SPRINT'S and Virgin Mobile USA's standard policy is that they will only unlock phones for travel abroad. The law doesn't force them to change that policy.

But it does make it legal for any companies that can figure it out to legally unlock the iPhone 5s. I simply see no one yet that can do it.

 

[Kar98]

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?

Because Sprint is the ********* of the four major US cellphone provider, and the #3 buying up the #4 would leave us with two really expensive ones, only one of which is a GSM provider, and one really damn ****** one, so even though there would still be three major carriers, there would be no consumer choice left with one super expensive one, one equally expensive one that doesn't even use GSM, and a ****** cheap one.


Now I hear you ask, but we only have two major cable carriers, and you don't even have a choice which one to pick in many areas, how is that allowed then? Yeah, exactly. Good question.

 

[eyoungren]

I understand that SPRINT is going to continue to refuse to unlock it, but I also understand that outside of programming, all iPhone 5s phones have the same CDMA/GSM transmitter capabilities both domestically & abroad.

So I find it hard to believe no one will come up with a way to completely unlock SPRINT/Virgin Mobile USA iPhones. There should be no physical reason inside the phone to make their version different or completely prevent it.

Sprint pairs their phones IMEI/ESNs with the SIM card. Remove the SIM card and the phone refuses to function.

I can technically agree with you. However, if there was a way to do this, third party unlocks for domestic use would have done it by now. So far, since the iPhone 4s, there has been no one able to do this. SIM interposers don't count.

 

[kingtj]

Why a problem?

Honestly, your logic is correct. But in this case, I think T-Mobile customers are the ones happiest it didn't go through -- simply because Sprint taking them over looked like a net negative. Sprint, for example, was rumored to want to eliminate most of T-Mobile's "un-carrier" marketing initiatives, including letting people try out the iPhone 5s on the network for free for 30 days, and unlimited music streaming.

I'm not sure that there's necessarily some provable benefit to having 4 carriers instead of 3 -- but at least in this scenario? It would likely have wound up better for consumers if T-Mobile (#3) purchased Sprint (#4) instead of the other way around.

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?

 

[macduke]

I wish these stupid telecoms would hire me as an adviser.

"Should we buy X national carrier?"

"Nope."

"Wow, we just saved millions of dollars by not wasting a bunch of time!"

"Yep."

I don't see why these companies think this will fly. It didn't work with AT&T, why would it work with you? There was a reason the government broke up companies into the baby bells back in the day. Why would it be ok today?

 

[BuffaloTF]

I understand that SPRINT is going to continue to refuse to unlock it, but I also understand that outside of programming, all iPhone 5s phones have the same CDMA/GSM transmitter capabilities both domestically & abroad.

So I find it hard to believe no one will come up with a way to completely unlock SPRINT/Virgin Mobile USA iPhones. There should be no physical reason inside the phone to make their version different or completely prevent it.

This is not the case at all with Sprint iPhones... The Sprint Model of the 5, 5S and 5C are different than all the others -- and tailored to their specific bands and to the bands in Japan.

The 5S as the example here, Sprint is Model A1453. AT&T/T-Mo is A1533, and the Verizon model is also A1533, but with CDMA enabled (otherwise not available if you buy one for AT&T or T-Mo). The differences really lie in LTE, 1453 has LTE Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26. 1533 has LTE 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25.

Sprint models are totally SIM locked domestically from the baseband version they use. No unlocks are available. Starting February 11, 2015 -- Sprint has committed to allowing domestic unlocks, to adhere to the new unlocking law (which actually states this must be the case by January, but whatever). Whether this transcends this date, and hits this new iPhone is unknown at this point.

I am unsure if a jailbreak would help you on your way, but then you'd have to be willing to do that if it does.

 

[krravi]

And yet Cable companies are merging left and right creating a monopoly.

 

[alent1234]

And yet Cable companies are merging left and right creating a monopoly.

cable companies are smaller than cell carriers and have less customers

 

[Yoshi Yogurt]

I dunno... back in the day.... I had a pretty sweet $24.99 plan with Qwest that gave me 1000 minutes and 5000 weekend minutes. That was before SMS was popular and before cellular data existed. I miss the late 90's. It was a simpler time.

Yea I am paying $25 for my line, unlimited calls/text, 2.5GB 4G data

4 of us in the family on this $100/month plan so $25 is pretty sweet.

 

[IJ Reilly]

This is a bunch of nonsense. Fighting antitrust suits can cost a lot of money, and can result in significant negative publicity. Both mergers would have proceeded without government intervention. It is absolutely correct to say that they were "blocked" by the government.

To use an analogy, let's say that the state uses civil forfeiture to seize $1000 worth of my assets. I call a lawyer and determine that it will cost $2000 for me to successfully fight the case in court. I subsequently decide that it is not worth the cost. Does the government now bear no responsibility for what happened? Of course not. Their actions directly led to this result, for good or bad.

No, not really. You are simply repeating the double-talk, and repetition does not make it sound any more true or logical. Of course if the government had no antitrust concerns the merger would have proceeded, but that's like saying if there wasn't a stop sign on the corner that you could not have run it. The problem is, the stop sign on the corner actually exists. If either AT&T or Sprint thought they could will the stop sign out of existence, then that was just plain foolish of them.

A great many of these mega-megers do in fact proceed on the basis of negotiated settlements with the DoJ. This one didn't, twice. For a reason.

 

[BuffaloTF]

cable companies are smaller than cell carriers and have less customers

And they also don't compete against each other -- ever. They are each the sole cable provider wherever they are.