U.S. Justice Department 'Leaning Against' Approving T-Mobile/Sprint Merger

[alexandr]

They are definitely the third most powerful.

exactly. and having left t-mobile for at&t when the iphone was released, and returning to them in 2013, i can say that their service is in no way inferior to at&t's, at least in nyc. but the perks i get are amazing in comparison. anyway, not sure what my point is, i guess that they've been pushing vz & at&t to be better or less expensive this whole time, and i sincerely home that won't change if they merge with sprint.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Expanding to 3 national carriers can only lead to good things. This should've been approved ages ago without a second guess. If this fails it's yet another example of the crony capitalism that is wrecking the nation.

 

[mdatwood]

Sprint is terrible. As a happy TMO customer, I don't want anything about Sprint infecting TMO.

 

[charlituna]

Wow, this is turning into a drama. Personally, I think it should be approved. Sprint will fail soon. Why let them turn into dust?

So let them fail and have their customers move to a carrier of their choice not end up with one by default.

 

[B.A.T]

Consolidating to 3 major players puts too much power in the hands of a few. I prefer to have many choices, resulting in lower prices. We just switched our phones from Verizon to Consumer Cellular, and the cost for exactly the same service is only 1/3 of what we used to pay.

Consumer Cellular is terrible. Good luck.

 

[Rychiar]

I'm for it. I love Tmobiles prices but there service is awful near me. Would hope the merger would boost it

 

[I7guy]

“Paul” is going to be disappointed.if the merger doesn’t go through, will sprint survive?

 

[IPPlanMan]

If FCC approves and DOJ doesn't I would suspect the next stop is court where the DOJ would have to explain how this affects competition.

I'm looking forward to hearing the DOJ explain how consumers would be helped if Sprint failed as a business.

SoftBank owns nearly 85% of Sprint. If they ever exceed 85% ownership, they’re required to purchase the remaining shares.

People talk about Sprint failing. SoftBank is letting it fail.

 

[shadowcatz23]

If FCC approves and DOJ doesn't I would suspect the next stop is court where the DOJ would have to explain how this affects competition.

I'm looking forward to hearing the DOJ explain how consumers would be helped if Sprint failed as a business.

This is exactly right. If sprint fails and then Verizon or at&t gets their spectrum that company will control the wireless industry effectively killing all competition. So which is worse letting them merge creating a company that might shake up things or just letting one fail and making things worse. Plus let’s be honest these companies aren’t competitive right now with each other.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I really hope they let this one go through so we can break the duopoly. A merger would be great for consumers and may light a fire under AT&T and VZN. Fingers crossed!

 

[drumcat]

This is just negotiation. Public leaks like this show frustration by the leaking party.

 

[vipergts2207]

Though I’m generally against mergers like this, currently T-Mobile and Sprint aren’t big enough to be sufficient competition to ATT or Verizon. Allowing them to combine might actually enable actual competition, instead of letting Verizon and ATT divy a large chunk of the upper-end of the market among themselves. Let’s also not forget that having all these redundant towers between the big four adds cost to consumers as well.

 

[SoN1NjA]

I'm for it. I love Tmobiles prices but there service is awful near me. Would hope the merger would boost it

They’ve already signed a roaming agreement, no merger needed

 

[Breaking Good]

SoftBank owns nearly 85% of Sprint. If they ever exceed 85% ownership, they’re required to purchase the remaining shares.

People talk about Sprint failing. SoftBank is letting it fail.

At some point SoftBank will get tired of throwing good money after bad and just sell off the assets.
[doublepost=1558391696][/doublepost]

Sprint is terrible. As a happy TMO customer, I don't want anything about Sprint infecting TMO.

I'm a happy Sprint customer. But I realize that Sprint won't survive long-term without T-Mobile.

And don't worry, T-Mobile management will be controlling the combined company. As a current T-Mobile customer you likely won't notice any difference in the combined company until 5G is rolled out. I doubt nationwide 5G will be fully-viable until 2023 at the earliest.

 

[KGBguy]

I'm so grateful that my government is watching out for me. What would I do without it?!
Sieg Heil, my government!

 

[tongxinshe]

If FCC approves and DOJ doesn't I would suspect the next stop is court where the DOJ would have to explain how this affects competition.

I'm looking forward to hearing the DOJ explain how consumers would be helped if Sprint failed as a business.

Not that consumers would be helped, but Verizon and AT&T, since they will join the party of eating up Sprint's corpse, in that way they will make sure that their dominating position is never threatened.

 

[jml1982]

This is definitely different than the Disney/Fox one. These cell providers are essentially commodities. We need more competition there. Disney has tons of competition and you don't really have to use any Disney service like you do wireless, internet, etc.

Yeah, but Sprint isn't going to make it in the long run, and to have a better edge on 5G T-Mobile needs it. T-Mobile already has the lowest plans, and i'm sure that will continue, they are the ones who brought Verizon and AT&T back down from their astronomical pricing.
[doublepost=1558393813][/doublepost]

Why NOT let them turn into dust? Either way they are gone. T-Mobile should save it’s money.

No, T-Mobile wants the Spectrum, that's what this purchase is about, and I'm sure AT&T and Verizon will try to scoop that up if this deal doesn't go through once Sprint goes bankrupt.

 

[Baymowe335]

Yeah, but Sprint isn't going to make it in the long run, and to have a better edge on 5G T-Mobile needs it. T-Mobile already has the lowest plans, and i'm sure that will continue, they are the ones who brought Verizon and AT&T back down from their astronomical pricing.
[doublepost=1558393813][/doublepost]
No, T-Mobile wants the Spectrum, that's what this purchase is about, and I'm sure AT&T and Verizon will try to scoop that up if this deal doesn't go through once Sprint goes bankrupt.

The problem is, T-Mobile service coverage area and overall strength is crap. It’s just not as good as VZ or ATT, sadly.

 

[Breaking Good]

The problem is, T-Mobile service coverage area and overall strength is crap. It’s just not as good as VZ or ATT, sadly.

Are you speaking from personal, recent experience? A number of people on this site and others who claim to be T-Mobile customers claim that their service is as good as VZ or ATT and they have seen remarkable improvement over the past several years and T-Mobile has built out its network.

 

[michaelsviews]

In other news, Ajit Pai gives it 'Two Thumb's Up'.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ger-requires-5g-rollout-thatll-happen-anyway/

Good Boy Ajit, doing what your masters are telling you.

Doesnt Sprint have like the worst Customer Service going? So does this mean that there going to wear pink shirts and yellow pants? or Vice Versa?

 

[hudson1]

I'm surprised the DOJ is taking this stance. What we know is VerizonWireless and AT&T have similar market shares with VZW the larger of the two. If a combined T-Mobile/Sprint would become #2 then it implies all three would be within shouting distance of each other. That's generally not something that would automatically reject the merger so they must have some other data that concerns them (and which we may not know).

 

[kingtj]

This is how I've viewed it too. The fact is, Sprint has been in major financial trouble as far back as the Nextel merger that was completely botched. They have, by far, the worst coverage map of any of the carriers and arguably some of the worst customer service.

It seems like they've been doing some really heavy subsidies on pretty high-end phone handsets in an effort to retain customers on contracts. And they have little areas where they win out as "best option", just because they happen to have a tower in a spot where the other carriers didn't bother putting one. (A friend of mine owns a bunch of land out near Cuba, Missouri and everyone out there relies on Sprint hotspots for Internet service, as well as their phones. You just don't get a signal with the other guys unless you go up to the top of the largest hills out there.) But they're just trying to string everything along until they get bought out. If this deal fails - I could see them folding in the near future.

Wow, this is turning into a drama. Personally, I think it should be approved. Sprint will fail soon. Why let them turn into dust?

 

[Baymowe335]

Are you speaking from personal, recent experience? A number of people on this site and others who claim to be T-Mobile customers claim that their service is as good as VZ or ATT and they have seen remarkable improvement over the past several years and T-Mobile has built out its network.

Maybe it’s better some places, but I know so many people who hate it and have a close family member with it and they are always missing texts.

 

[BuffaloTF]

I'm surprised the DOJ is taking this stance. What we know is VerizonWireless and AT&T have similar market shares with VZW the larger of the two. If a combined T-Mobile/Sprint would become #2 then it implies all three would be within shouting distance of each other. That's generally not something that would automatically reject the merger so they must have some other data that concerns them (and which we may not know).

AT&T and Verizon bounce around on who has more subscribers almost every quarter it seems -- and a combined T-Mobile and Sprint would still be 3rd -- that's how much bigger those 2 are. New TM would be around 130 million active lines, Verizon and AT&T are both over 150 million.

 

[Chazz08]

Consolidating to 3 major players puts too much power in the hands of a few. I prefer to have many choices, resulting in lower prices. We just switched our phones from Verizon to Consumer Cellular, and the cost for exactly the same service is only 1/3 of what we used to pay.

If you really think is a national competitor, then I don't think you know much about the industry. Also, there will be no sprint in about 5 years anyway.