Hesse says T-Mobile-Sprint combo makes sense if both decide on LTE for 4G
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Back in 2008, T-Mobile's parent company, Germany's Deutsche Telekon considered buying Sprint and merging it with their U.S unit. They decided not to pursue a deal because of the different 3G pipelines both employ. But with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the top two carriers in the U.S. by size, picking up market share at the expense of the nation's third and fourth largest carriers (Sprint and T-Mobile respectively), a merger between the two could form a company that could challenge the leading carriers. A deal might also help out T-Mobile as the company is said to be short of spectrum necessary for 4G services. However, even though DT CEO René Obermann has said that there will be no multi-billion euro deals this year, when it comes to the world of M&A, money talks and if it says the right numbers, anything could happen.
source: FinancialTimes
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21 Comments
1. breal525 posted on 20 Oct 2010, 01:47 0 0
If they don't merge then T-Mobil might loose their last US customer
2. scorpio85 posted on 13 Jul 2010, 16:11 0 0
I agree, it is a great idea for both companies. Sprint ups there client base and TMobile, well they get a whole lot of nothing they had.
19. wade1968 posted on 15 Jul 2010, 19:51 0 0
Am I the only one who read the article of a european country that turned on their 4G system when the people didn't know it? then that village all got sick. Guess what when they turned it off the people got better. Don't believe then look it up yourselve you lazy people.
3. de2philly posted on 13 Jul 2010, 16:33 0 0
The only way I like the idea is if T-MO branches their US market to T-MO USA and not Duetfhslchclj Telekom - I DONT want T-MO to buy Sprint; I'd much rather have Sprint and Dan Hesse in charge so US keeps a cell phone company and they can continue to imply cutting edge technology; I only like it because it'll give sprint more subscribers.
6. Vegas89 posted on 13 Jul 2010, 18:14 0 0
I agree, I didn't like TMO when I had it but I've loved Sprint since I switched. So I'd rather Sprint buy TMO then TMO buy Sprint
4. wade1968 posted on 13 Jul 2010, 17:03 0 0
why would sprint and t-mobile combine? they wont add to either cell system so why bother. all 4g or wifi only works in big cities with lots of towers. hell go ahead this will get sprint off of verizons towers.
5. scorpio85 posted on 13 Jul 2010, 17:57 0 0
I dont know if you noticed, but Verizon doesnt compare maps to Sprint. They only do it to AT&T and T-Mobile for the obvious reason. If they do combine, they can use LTE together. Sprint and Nextel use different towers as well, yet they are together. 4G is not in just big cities, as the matter of fact its not in any of the top 5 cities. You think just like a dumbass (aka- Verizon customer)
17. wade1968 posted on 14 Jul 2010, 19:05 0 0
cause sprints map is verizons. same cdma towers different band width.
18. scorpio85 posted on 15 Jul 2010, 12:16 0 0
They can roam off (eachother), but Sprint doesnt go around advertising there maps with Verizons towers included. Verizon does have more coverage, but Sprint does have the second best and not because of roaming.
7. Jojofromdabay posted on 13 Jul 2010, 18:16 0 0
Sprint killed nextel i dont want them to kill tmobile or i might as well go to at&t or metro
8. oddmanout posted on 13 Jul 2010, 21:09 0 0
lol. nextel was never anything to brag about. Sprint's merger if anything helped nextel. Aside from construction workers, hardly anyone used their push to talk service or their ugly heavy duty phones. And the way I see it is Sprint > T-Mobile.
10. de2philly posted on 13 Jul 2010, 23:02 0 0
Sprint uses the IDEN frequency (Nextel) for their Wimax I believe; so the merger wasnt such a fail after all :P
9. realism121 posted on 13 Jul 2010, 22:00 0 0
First things first...if I have to read one more fucking article on this damn site referring to Sprint as "the pin dropping network", I'm going to fucking scream. That marketing phrase/campaign started in 1986! 1986!!!! and its DONE!! I dont think they've even used it in probably 6 - 10 years, so why the hell are you, oh brilliant writers at phonearena??? PLEASE, get it together and find something more relevant and current to refer to Sprint as. Second...I think a merger between T-Mo and Sprint would be great IF it went as several other people have commented...where Sprint buys T-Mo. Sadly...that will never happen. Sprint has been bleeding money for so many years that I don't see that having any chance in hell of ever happening. If it were to go down, I think it would surely be T-Mo buying Sprint. And in that case I would only hope that they would keep the name Sprint, keep the Sprint phone selection, and Sprint prices and policies. That would be an ideal situation :)
11. de2philly posted on 13 Jul 2010, 23:04 0 0
Sprint has plenty of "money" trust me lol. Unfortunately it only seems lately customers are realizing Sprint should be your #1 or #2 choice for a cell phone company; seems like the nerdier people already know this; but T_MO worldwide has more $ and subs than Sprint by far :-(
12. shamefulzero posted on 14 Jul 2010, 02:12 0 0
dude that what sprint yellow logo it! it's the pin dropping. they explained that in 2005 when they bought nextel. they are still considered the pin dropping company. i've had both and sprints network is by far supiorior to tmobile if sprint bought tmo i'd go back to sprint side as soon as they waived the etf if i transfered. i was with them for 8 yrs and fell victim to a tmo employees promises. i hate tmo and can't wait to get out.
13. realism121 posted on 14 Jul 2010, 08:00 0 0
Actually, sprint is now considered the NOW network...and has been for a little while at this point.
16. pattypatterson posted on 14 Jul 2010, 09:29 0 0
money is not the issue here at all its all about spectrum which sprint has far more of available to use then any other network you cant even buy up the amount that sprint has in their back pocket just waiting to use for new faster networks
14. Gawain posted on 14 Jul 2010, 08:32 0 0
Good grief...how will Sprint and T-Mo merge? Will Sprint be the acquiring entity? No. You know why? They don't have any f**k**g money. They're bleeding customers and already have a ton of debt that is nearly double their market cap. Will T-Mobile USA be the acquiring entity and majority holder? No. You know why? Because regulators will not allow a foreign company (like Deutsche Telekom) to own a US sourced Tier 1 backbone (which is Sprint's only hard asset at this point). Meanwhile, a merged company contending with four, that's right four different standards (GSM/HSPA, CDMA, iDEN, WiMAX) before they even talk about LTE....and speaking of WiMax, Clearwire is in a negative ROI by a factor of hundreds of percentage points, and they're riding lots of credit too. Oh yeah, then there's the small issue being that ALL their markets overlap, so you'd have to swap everything out with other carriers, and you're left with what you started with. Dan Hesse is desperate. Such far reaching logic like this happens when faced with $4 share prices, $21B in debt, $1.5B cash, no positive subscriber growth since 2007...
21. wade1968 posted on 15 Jul 2010, 19:54 0 0
OK verizon owns the towers sprint runs on. 2 sprint pays rent to verizon for using their equipment and towers. 3 cdma is only divided by band width.
