Sprint Abandons Plans to Purchase T-Mobile

[eyoungren]

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.

A jailbreak will do nothing except what it normally does. Software unlocks have not been useable for a couple of years now.

All your other information is totally correct. Somehow, I see the iPhone 6 being excluded by Sprint. If it comes out in September then that is before January/February 2015 which means Sprint can lock it down.

BTW, Sprint updated their unlock policy a few months ago so that any blame on this is cast on the manufacturers and not on their patent refusal to unlock. I speculate that they rewrote it this way because they anticipate a flood of unlock requests. So, blame it on the manufacturers and not Sprint. Nevermind that it's Sprint that has dictated this.

 

[plabrevo]

Curious that the article is not mentioning the offer from Iliad/Free that is still on as we stands.

 

[TrentS]

Black Trench Coat Guy

Like I've said before, when Sprint got rid of the black trench coat guy in their ads, they started going downhill. He was the face of sprint, and Hess tried to make himself the face of Sprint, but he could never pull it off. Hire the black trench guy back for their ads and maybe they could make a comeback.

 

[kerrikins]

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?

It's only recently that these mergers have started to not go through. Look at the at&t wireless and cingular merger... And Verizon bought Alltel back in 2008, with AT&T getting the rest of the subscribers.

That's why they keep trying.

 

[ricci]

Good for Tmo! Sprint sucks!! Had them for over 10yrs! They Let me go! Yea, thank for all the years!

 

[BuffaloTF]

It's only recently that these mergers have started to not go through. Look at the at&t wireless and cingular merger... And Verizon bought Alltel back in 2008, with AT&T getting the rest of the subscribers.

That's why they keep trying.

Larger acquisitions are under scrutiny now, sure. But not large buying small. I would even think that AT&T buying US Cellular wouldn't be looked at too harshly by the Feds. USCC has a largely complimentary network to AT&Ts, filling in gaps of missing cellular spectrum (850) that AT&T does not have. So really, not eliminating a competitor, just making an existing competitor larger. Also why Alltel wasn't chopped up too heavily when Verizon bought them, and why AT&T got the scraps; and AT&T now buying the remainder of Alltel (the ATNI-owned version). They filled gaps where they lacked native networks previously.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Well there goes the chance of having a third national option to AT&T/Verizon. Bad news for me.

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That was the whole point of the merger.

A telecom company shouldn't have to merger to have service. lol. They should have it from day one. That's kinda an important part of providing cell phone service.

 

[keisa]

"Sprint Abandons Plans to Ruin T-Mobile"

 

[mikefla]

There we go, this deal made no sense in the first place. Sprint should probably be thinking about filling for Bankruptcy instead lol....

-Mike

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A telecom company shouldn't have to merger to have service. lol. They should have it from day one. That's kinda an important part of providing cell phone service.

]
Yeah! And I would certainly agree with the merger if they were both GSM carriers as that would make send. But a crap CDMA carrier merging with an almost as crappy GSM carrier is not so good!

-Mike

 

[eroslws]

Anyone who thinks this is good news for T-Mobile is delusional. Coupled with the recent ruling on joint spectrum bids, T-Mobile has no choice but to find another buyer. Maybe Dish or Charter, but either way, they will need to come up with money (aka higher monthly bills) for the auction bid because DT is not going to give TMO-USA anything. Sprint, on the other hand, is backed by massive cash reserve out of Japan. Simply put, they dropped this buy-out to eliminate their competition at the auctions in 2015.

 

[eyoungren]

There we go, this deal made no sense in the first place. Sprint should probably be thinking about filling for Bankruptcy instead lol....

-Mike

Why bankruptcy? Softbank owns over 80% of Sprint and has funneled $8 billion into Sprint so far. Just because you disagree with the crappy service and crappy network doesn't automatically equate to Sprint teetering on insolvency.

Yeah! And I would certainly agree with the merger if they were both GSM carriers as that would make send. But a crap CDMA carrier merging with an almost as crappy GSM carrier is not so good!

-Mike

Uhm, there's this little thing called Long Term Evolution, or LTE to be exact. It's 4G, which is the next step up from 3G. Both T-Mobile and Sprint share the fact that they both offer LTE. So, despite what some people think about incompatibility, had this gone forward GSM/CDMA wouldn't have been an issue. Unless of course, everyone WANTS to go back to 3G?!

 

[Konrad9]

All of you people jumping for joy need to read more. Sprint was going to hand over control to T-Mobile. It would have been a Sprint-sized T-Mobile, not Sprint absorbing T-Mobile.

This is a loss for consumers, not a win.

 

[eyoungren]

All of you people jumping for joy need to read more. Sprint was going to hand over control to T-Mobile. It would have been a Sprint-sized T-Mobile, not Sprint absorbing T-Mobile.

This is a loss for consumers, not a win.

Right. And guess who was going to run the whole thing? John Legere. That's right.

Dan Hesse would have been out. And the whole damn thing would have been renamed either T-Mobile or Softbank USA. Either way, Sprint as a brand would have been dead.

 

[Fusion79]

Right. And guess who was going to run the whole thing? John Legere. That's right.

Dan Hesse would have been out. And the whole damn thing would have been renamed either T-Mobile or Softbank USA. Either way, Sprint as a brand would have been dead.

Correct. In fact I think there is still going to be a rebranding of Sprint. The Sprint brand has simply become too toxic. I think Softbank USA is still coming.

 

[macduke]

It's only recently that these mergers have started to not go through. Look at the at&t wireless and cingular merger... And Verizon bought Alltel back in 2008, with AT&T getting the rest of the subscribers.

That's why they keep trying.

Yeah, but you can't just merge back into one big company again, which is what would happen when you get the number of national companies this low.

 

[CEmajr]

All of you people jumping for joy need to read more. Sprint was going to hand over control to T-Mobile. It would have been a Sprint-sized T-Mobile, not Sprint absorbing T-Mobile.

This is a loss for consumers, not a win.

How do you figure? With the combined TMO/Sprint being near AT&T/Verizon in size who's to say the aggressive policies T-Mobile currently has would continue? There wouldn't be any reason for them to not just price themselves at or near Verizon/AT&T prices and just turn the market into an overpriced oligopoly (think Canada). That's what eliminating a competitor does, reduce competition and raise prices. T-Mobile came with these aggressive tactics because they're much smaller than the big 2 and this is what they had to do in order to compete. There isn't any reason to be that aggressive when you're the same size as your competition. Unless you're one of the people who would take Son's word for it that he would lower prices just out of the goodness of his heart rather than enjoy fat margins. It's all about the profit margins.

This is a win for consumers.

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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?

Because selling the stock as a controlling stake is more valuable than selling shares directly. TMUS market cap is only around $25 billion but Softbank was willing to pay well over $30 billion for only around 60% of the company just to give you an idea.

 

[kenroberts83]

A telecom company shouldn't have to merger to have service. lol. They should have it from day one. That's kinda an important part of providing cell phone service.

Despite some cellphone towers being disguised as trees, they in fact do not grow on trees. I always find it amusing how some posters here live in economic fairytale land. There's a reason Verizon and AT&T are basically a duopoly nationally, and it's because they had the funds to invest in a very large network. I'm sure Sprint and T-mobile would love to duplicate that success, but cellular infrastructure doesn't pay for itself.

In fact, the more national competitors there are, the less payoff these companies get in return for infrastructure investments. The current economics of the cellular business may not support more than 2-3 national 4G networks at this time. Hopefully the tech becomes cheaper with 5G eventually, but I suspect the emphasis will stay on speed and not cost, which primarily benefits residents of dense urban areas. In short, expect to continue to see only two national cellular carriers outside of the major cities in America. There might be room for a third eventually, but it's hard to see how a company can get there any time soon.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Apple should just buy T-Mobile and keep the aggressive pricing up, buy more spectrum, upgrade all towers and be their own carrier. Isn't that originally what Jobs wanted anyway?

 

[kenroberts83]

All of you people jumping for joy need to read more. Sprint was going to hand over control to T-Mobile. It would have been a Sprint-sized T-Mobile, not Sprint absorbing T-Mobile.

This is a loss for consumers, not a win.

People here don't think logically on issues of economics or business. They're largely economically illiterate, which is unfortunate. Probably a bunch of democrats.

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Anyone who thinks this is good news for T-Mobile is delusional. Coupled with the recent ruling on joint spectrum bids, T-Mobile has no choice but to find another buyer. Maybe Dish or Charter, but either way, they will need to come up with money (aka higher monthly bills) for the auction bid because DT is not going to give TMO-USA anything. Sprint, on the other hand, is backed by massive cash reserve out of Japan. Simply put, they dropped this buy-out to eliminate their competition at the auctions in 2015.

Well, the good news is that a merger will have a much higher chance of going through in 2 years, when we have a new president. Perhaps then we can get a true third national carrier.

 

[powers74]

Thank God.

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Apple should just buy T-Mobile and keep the aggressive pricing up, buy more spectrum, upgrade all towers and be their own carrier. Isn't that originally what Jobs wanted anyway?

That would rock so hard.

 

[kenroberts83]

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.

You're acting as if antitrust actions are just permanent fixtures of the landscape. That is absolutely ludicrous. Antitrust "concerns" as you put it, are entirely dependent on the personalities and opinions of the people in office at the time. There is no set rule saying that X company of Y size must prove in court (or give significant "concessions" to the government) that their merger will not harm competition.

To use your analogy, since you brought it up, the justice deparment's antitrust concerns are similar to a person randomly throwing down stop signs right in front of you as you travel down the highway at 50mph. Instead of dealing with it, most of us are likely to simply turn off the highway and take a safer course. The rewards of that highway have already been spoiled by the imposition of the government, and may not be worth the cost of even successfully navigating that route.

You need to stop with the doubletalk and political speak. If a government action results in a predictable corporate reaction, it is correct to say that the government caused the reaction. If I spray weed killer on my flowers, I don't blame the flowers for dying.

 

[winston1236]

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

Breaking up Ma Comcast hopefully.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You're acting as if antitrust actions are just permanent fixtures of the landscape. That is absolutely ludicrous. Antitrust "concerns" as you put it, are entirely dependent on the personalities and opinions of the people in office at the time. There is no set rule saying that X company of Y size must prove in court (or give significant "concessions" to the government) that their merger will not harm competition.

To use your analogy, since you brought it up, the justice deparment's antitrust concerns are similar to a person randomly throwing down stop signs right in front of you as you travel down the highway at 50mph. Instead of dealing with it, most of us are likely to simply turn off the highway and take a safer course. The rewards of that highway have already been spoiled by the imposition of the government, and may not be worth the cost of even successfully navigating that route.

You need to stop with the doubletalk and political speak. If a government action results in a predictable corporate reaction, it is correct to say that the government caused the reaction. If I spray weed killer on my flowers, I don't blame the flowers for dying.

I don't need to stop anything, sorry. If you are registering an ideological objection to antitrust laws, then you are too late. At least a hundred years too late.

 

[kenroberts83]

I don't need to stop anything, sorry. If you are registering an ideological objection to antitrust laws, then you are too late. At least a hundred years too late.

Ha, funny. Let's all pretend that antitrust enforcement didn't change precisely 5.5 years ago, and won't change again in 2.5 more years. That's the thing with government by fiat, the law effectively changes whenever a new person takes over. I'm certainly not in favor of that way of operating, but that's the way it is.

Don't bother replying to me again, it's clear you have nothing informative to say on this topic.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Ha, funny. Let's all pretend that antitrust enforcement didn't change precisely 5.5 years ago, and won't change again in 2.5 more years. That's the thing with government by fiat, the law effectively changes whenever a new person takes over. I'm certainly not in favor of that way of operating, but that's the way it is.

Don't bother replying to me again, it's clear you have nothing informative to say on this topic.

Just because laws are not interpreted uniformly does not mean that they amount government by fiat, since laws have always been subject to interpretation, and always will be. What you are making an argument for or against is unclear. Nothing that anyone can hang onto, it seems.

I am not responding to you but for the benefit others who you are apparently attempting to misinform. No bother, really, though it shouldn't be necessary.