US carriers charge on with network spending, despite Sprint's merger with T-Mobile
Just because T-Mobile is planning to gobble Sprint up in a merger that will result in eventual synergies of up to $64 billion down the road, doesn't mean that the two carriers are slacking it when it comes to network infrastructure investment.
On the contrary, Deutsche Bank analysts are reporting that the two carriers are charging on with their budgeted capital outlays as planned, and, at least for now, the new tower rollouts aren't being affected even on paper. If the merger goes through the regulators, the new T-Mobile will drop the amount of towers it uses from the combined 110,000 number now (accounting for Sprint's towers as well), to 85,000.
For Sprint, we believe activity remains focused on extending 2.5GHz deployments across its full portfolio, with incremental spend aimed at both newer macro sites as well as small cells (builds it would need with or without a TMUS merger, in our view). For T-Mobile, we believe spending priorities include 600MHz deployments and additional capacity enhancements via small cells (again, both items we would anticipate with or without a Sprint merger).
via FierceWireless
