Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[Dkoellerwx]

On 5/7/2018 at 7:24 PM, bigsnake49 said:

I have been pro merger for a while now for the following reasons:

1. Softbank did not invest in Sprint beyond the original buyout 

2. Sprint could not afford the LTE deployment on its own, much less 5G

3. Sprint could not project manage its way out of a plastic bag

DT has shown a willingness to invest in T-Mobile's network, the two networks will be become one so the 5G deployment costs will be shared and T-Mobile has shown that they are mean and lean and can get things done.

I take issues with point 2 and 3. Clearly Sprint has turned things around. We've seen plenty of evidence this year of accelerated deployments, innovation in antenna/tower technology to speed things along, and new partnerships to get proper backhaul to more sites and small cells. Money and management have been issues in the past yes, and there may still be some kinks to iron out yet, but things are *much* better than they used to be. The fact that they committed 6 billion (or more) to capex for the next several years pre-merger should tell you that things are much better than they were.

Edited to add: You are not currently a sponsor, but if you were, you would be able to see the hundreds/thousands of site upgrades, and dozens (or more) site *adds* that have been happening this year.

[Arysyn]

5 hours ago, S4GRU said:

 

I don't mind that we host a link to this on our site.  In general, I am not pro-merger.  But by the same token, we aren't looking to be be the hive of the resistance.  We may post some S4GRU Staff Editorials on the subject in the not too distant future.  But we don't want to be part of organized anti-merger activity.

 

Robert

Robert, its your site, so I respect your opinion to run it the way you want, make decisions, etc. I know you and I don't agree on everything, but please understand what I'm going to say now is really my best outlook for your site.

Allowing this link to the petition is damaging. I say this knowing that right now it may look innocent like one person sharing something that is their opinion, which I'd support say if S4GRU were not Sprint-related but more of the general network-oriented site I've been advocating upon the potential completion of the merger.

However, if this petition were to grow, we know Sprint executives view this site occasionally and they may see the link to this position as helping the merger to fail, even if its clear S4GRU isn't directly advocating it. There's a big difference between allowing various members here to speak their opinions about the merger in contrast with allowing an official link to a petition that could have consequences for Sprint and T-Mobile.

Officially it really doesn't look good. Similar to how posting links here of people on other forums bashing Sprint could be viewed the same as someone directly posting here bashing Sprint. Such as (and I'd never do this, btw), but I'd expect you and the staff to be angry at me if I kept posting links to people posting on other sites saying "Sprint sucks", because in essence it would show a very questionable motive on my part for doing so. Again I would never do that, but I can understand why it would look bad for me to do..

Posting a link here to an official petition against the merger is similar to showing a negative view of Sprint here that goes beyond a personal opinion. Sprint obviously wants this merger, so by allowing a link is showing attention to a cause that is going against Sprint's wishes, which puts it in a realm of Sprint bashing, not just an individual giving an opinion based on facts. An individual writing about their bad experience with Sprint or about how they don't like Softbank because of plans made and broken - those are not going to hurt Sprint. Whereas this petition has the potential of doing so, the link to it being publicly viewable here on S4GRU.

No offense intended, Robert. I really do appreciate this site and am only speaking to help.

[S4GRU]

20 minutes ago, Arysyn said:

Allowing this link to the petition is damaging...

I considered all the points you outlined when I considered allowing the link.  I definitely am not interested in "poking the bear" so to speak.  However, I'm sure that Sprint recognizes that our members have diverse opinions.  One errant link because of one person's opinion is not really a concern of mine, and likely not to Sprint either.

With that said, S4GRU has no interest in spearheading a charge against the merger.  We are not going to do that.  I think Sprint will be fine with that.  Besides, we are not affiliated with Sprint and entitled to our opinion.  And we may share that in an Editorial context some day.  We have S4GRU Staff who are for the merger and those against.  Maybe we will do write ups of both?

Robert

[utiz4321]

16 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I take issues with point 2 and 3. Clearly Sprint has turned things around. We've seen plenty of evidence this year of accelerated deployments, innovation in antenna/tower technology to speed things along, and new partnerships to get proper backhaul to more sites and small cells. Money and management have been issues in the past yes, and there may still be some kinks to iron out yet, but things are *much* better than they used to be. They fact that the committed 6 billion (or more) to capex for the next several years pre-merger should tell you that things are much better than they were.

Edited to add: You are not currently a sponsor, but if you were, you would be able to see the hundreds/thousands of site upgrades, and dozens (or more) sites *adds* that have been happening this year.

They dont have the money to build a competitive network and pay their debts. They can only grow through discounting meaning they would need to add massive amounts of customers to grow top line revenue. Where are they going to come from? Not VZW or ATT their customers that are price sensitive have already jumped to T mobile or sprint and sprint wont build a network that matches theirs.  So for sprint to become health they would have to start taking a stick to T-mobile but that just reverses the current market we have. We are going to three players, you might have three players because of a bankruptcy or 3 players and a zombie fourth company lerching along but not relevant. 

[iansltx]

At the risk of mentioning something that's been brought up in the previous 46 pages, there's exactly one merger condition I care about...albeit a bit of a stretch: deploy B41 on any macro site that has mid-band LTE on it (AWS or PCS) and is in an area with >= 60 MHz of Sprint-owned BRS + EBS, and serve fixed wireless with the following specs over said network:

25/3 or better with a 160GB or higher cap and $10/50GB or better for overages, using equipment available with both indoor and outdoor variants

Given how rich T-Mobile's backhaul network is, how much airlink capacity is available on B41 (particularly with massive MIMO and 5G), this is a softball requirement, and one that Charter is basically already investigating using CBRS and mmWave. I've probably said it before, but if you had to pick a band to dedicate to fixed wireless, BRS/EBS is ideal for that. Local wireless ISPs would kill for the spectrum Sprint uses for B41.

Granted, without T-Mo's deep mid-band holdings, Sprint can't really afford to go fixed-only (or fixed-primary) on B41. With the combined portfolios, they absolutely can, given the sheer volume of PCS A-G alone (a few years back one of the staff here added up PCS spectrum availability between Sprint and T-Mobile). Not counting AWS. Not even touching low-band, where T-Mobile is well-positioned of late.

Legere and Claure are talking a big game about wireless broadband with their merger announcement, particularly when mentioning cablecos as competitors. Fine; put your network where y'all's mouths are, because large swaths of the US could do with a second (or first) last-mile option that meets the FCC broadband definition without bouncing to a satellite and back. And yes, if I had to, I'd give up the B41 network around here, even though it's actually pretty widely available now and downright speedy (but so is T-Mobile's CA network...50M down and 30M up even when hairpinning through Seattle has me duly impressed).

[Arysyn]

3 hours ago, S4GRU said:

I considered all the points you outlined when I considered allowing the link.  I definitely am not interested in "poking the bear" so to speak.  However, I'm sure that Sprint recognizes that our members have diverse opinions.  One errant link because of one person's opinion is not really a concern of mine, and likely not to Sprint either.

With that said, S4GRU has no interest in spearheading a charge against the merger.  We are not going to do that.  I think Sprint will be fine with that.  Besides, we are not affiliated with Sprint and entitled to our opinion.  And we may share that in an Editorial context some day.  We have S4GRU Staff who are for the merger and those against.  Maybe we will do write ups of both?

Robert

Its certainly an issue with several different ways of looking at it, and I'm not sure any is better/worse than others (the discussions/links issue pertaining to the merger, not the merger itself). S4GRU certainly being its own site not affiliated with Sprint I'm glad for, same I imagine many other members here are as well. It allows for freedom of various viewpoints without official Sprint staff moderating/banning us for certain talk.

Regardless of the lack of official oversight by Sprint itself, its still a good thing to prevent direct attacks against Sprint here, and to some extent Softbank, though my thinking is Softbank ought to be more open to criticism and I certainly see them as the weak point to Sprint. Yet even I would never post a link here to a petition such as "Get Softbank out of Sprint", because I respect the nature of whatever positive outlook Sprint has of S4GRU, whether the site here officially supports the position of the link or not. Just my opinion.

The writeups seem fine though, because they'd be individual opinions. I figure you'd probably have a disclaimer of sorts like "The following opinions expressed are of the individual and not necessarily that of S4GRU" and so on. Even an official writeup collaboration seems fine, so long as its a counter balance between pros and cons.

Of course I'm not trying to say what should or shouldn't be done here, but I do think the recognition Sprint has given S4GRU over the years (though I believe it ought to be more) is very nice and if this petition were to grow big, well its up to Sprint for interpretation, but I just see it as a potential negative. Whereas a link to an opinion poll showing both sides would be different.

[Trip]

6 hours ago, S4GRU said:

 We have S4GRU Staff who are for the merger and those against.

Plus staff who should not take a position on it. 

- Trip

[dro1984]

An interesting view of John Legere.    He is different and not what we typically think of as a CEO but his style is effective.   

 

John Legere... Who he is... do you think you know him?

[S4GRU]

5 hours ago, Trip said:

Plus staff who should not take a position on it. 

- Trip

And then there's that.

  

[Arysyn]

1 hour ago, dro1984 said:

An interesting view of John Legere.    He is different and not what we typically think of as a CEO but his style is effective.   

 

John Legere... Who he is... do you think you know him?

Not much of a background documentary on him, but I suppose thats just the format of the show.

[bigsnake49]

14 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

I take issues with point 2 and 3. Clearly Sprint has turned things around. We've seen plenty of evidence this year of accelerated deployments, innovation in antenna/tower technology to speed things along, and new partnerships to get proper backhaul to more sites and small cells. Money and management have been issues in the past yes, and there may still be some kinks to iron out yet, but things are *much* better than they used to be. They fact that the committed 6 billion (or more) to capex for the next several years pre-merger should tell you that things are much better than they were.

Edited to add: You are not currently a sponsor, but if you were, you would be able to see the hundreds/thousands of site upgrades, and dozens (or more) sites *adds* that have been happening this year.

I am pretty sure that as far as #2 is concerned, they will have to go further into debt in order to sustain that pace of investment in their network. T-Mobile would have been in the same boat if they had not had the break up fee from AT&T and a $5B debt forgiven by the parent company. But T-Mobile has been stellar in their marketing and in their execution.

As far as #3, I am very happy that they're finally executing. It just might be too late. They should have done whatever they're doing now in 2013. Softbank wanted to merge them with T-Mobile even back then.

[dro1984]

1 hour ago, Arysyn said:

Not much of a background documentary on him, but I suppose thats just the format of the show.

Arysyn: 

  It wasn't intended to be a complete biography.     It explained where he went to school, his early life and the companies he worked for (New England Bell, AT&T...)  and how T-Mobile wanted him.  I feel the whole intent was to show he is not the typical portrait of a traditional CEO and that's what it was meant to provide.  

Edited May 8, 2018 by dro1984

[bigsnake49]

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

I am pretty sure that as far as #2 is concerned, they will have to go further into debt in order to sustain that pace of investment in their network. T-Mobile would have been in the same boat if they had not had the break up fee from AT&T and a $5B debt forgiven by the parent company. But T-Mobile has been stellar in their marketing and in their execution.

As far as #3, I am very happy that they're finally executing. It just might be too late. They should have done whatever they're doing now in 2013. Softbank wanted to merge them with T-Mobile even back then.

The fact that Softbank let Sprint go for a dime will tell you that they were desperate.

[greenbastard]

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

The fact that Softbank let Sprint go for a dime will tell you that they were desperate.

Did you forget to log out of your main account and into your sock??

 

Sort of odd both T-Mobile and Sprint are simultaneously having service issues in Southeast Texas. T-Mobile has blamed it on a cut fiber line.

Edited May 8, 2018 by greenbastard

[danlodish345]

Did you forget to log out of your main account and into your sock?[emoji23]
 
Sort of odd both T-Mobile and Sprint are simultaneously having service issues in Southeast Texas. T-Mobile has blamed it on a cut fiber line.

AT&T as well...

Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk

[jreuschl]

On 5/7/2018 at 3:18 PM, bigsnake49 said:

So I see the combined company new phones have to support Band 71, 12, 26, 25, 66, 41. Most new phones on Sprint support those bands except 71. I think only S9 supports 71on Sprint. I could be wrong thou.

The complicating factor would be all the different CA schemes. Yikes!!!

Technically the S8 Active does since 71 was added to it vs the regular S8 and is in the identical (except software) T-Mobile version.

[greenbastard]

6 hours ago, danlodish345 said:

AT&T as well...

Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk
 

Just experienced those 6 hours of T-Mobile outage and I hated it. No voice or texts, period! 

I remember whenever Sprint had outages. I would at least roam on Verizon and have voice/SMS service. Not with T-Mobile. No service all day. This is probably the only negative I can think of to come from this merger for Sprint users.

[danlodish345]

Just experienced those 6 hours of T-Mobile outage and I hated it. No voice or texts, period! 
I remember whenever Sprint had outages. I would at least roam on Verizon and have voice/SMS service. Not with T-Mobile. No service all day. This is probably the only negative I can think of to come from this merger for Sprint users.

Yeah I understand your issue. I'm in New Jersey which is very far from the outage but it does suck when I lose service when I go south 2 South Jersey

Sent from my LG-H932 using Tapatalk

[Thomas L.]

The idea that this merger will somehow allow the US to take leadership in 5G is fallacious. I plan on writing a post about the state of the Chinese mobile market, as I just moved back to the US from China, and used all three Chinese carriers while I was in China, but this contains some essentials:

It won't happen because China as a whole is now much more invested in their mobile infrastructure than the United States. It is a national economic and security priority for them, and accessibility to the consumer, both in terms of price and coverage, is mandated by the government, as all three carriers are essentially government owned and controlled, and directly or indirectly receive money from the government. Both fixed and mobile broadband are essentially considered essential utilities for the public, and money making ventures second. Providers have been ordered to lower prices by 40% over the last two years, while increasing speeds. They've just announced a mandate on the increasing of upload speeds as well. They have to be considered utilities at this point, because a massive portion of China's financial transactions are completed through WeChat and Alipay, WeChat is so ubiquitous it can now be used as an electronic version of the Chinese national ID card, used for trains, planes, and nearly everything else. Your cell phone is essentially your life in China, you do everything with it.

 China Mobile has built out a band 39/40/41(38) LTE network that currently covers 99%+ of China's Population, with around 1.5 million base stations (even accounting for differences in population, the number is huge compared to the US). They essentially have complete coverage with band 38/41, with 39 (and 34 coming) as backups, and 40 used exclusively indoors. China Unicom and China Telecom, the other two smaller providers, have more than 150,000 base stations each. Spectrum in China is not bought, it is assigned, and in some cases there are usage fees attached - for 5G China has just lowered those usage fees significantly, eliminating them for the first few years. All three providers are extremely aggressive in deploying the latest technologies, and as 5G superiority is a national policy, they will continue to lead. Unless the US decides to have the US 5G network be nationalized on national security grounds, Sprint and T-Mobile are not going to succeed in making us world leaders, because the industry in the US in general just doesn't have the backing. It is just an easy, nationalistic excuse to try and convince people who are not necessarily aware of the realities of what the US faces in terms of global competition in the field. The fact that T-Mobile and Sprint are trying to use that as an incentive for approving the merger makes me weary of the whole thing.

 

[bigsnake49]

Yeah, this business about beating China on 5G is to tug at the patriotic strings of this administration. But not having to play a lot of money for 5G spectrum would allow New T-Mobile to concentrate on integrating the two networks and deploying 5G.

[danlodish345]

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

Yeah, this business about beating China on 5G is to tug at the patriotic strings of this administration. But not having to play a lot of money for 5G spectrum would allow New T-Mobile to concentrate on integrating the two networks and deploying 5G.

That's because China controls the telecoms. So they're more focused and more developed.

[aliensporebomb]

Maybe I'm just obliterated by the giant amount of messages in this thread and I don't know where to look but if they do merge as indicated what happens to all the equipment Sprint rolled out versus all the equipment T-Mobile is operating.  Are they compatible?  Can they work together effectively?  What happens to our existing phones and agreements?  Do they do some kind of weird clean slate where we start over?  I suppose I should read something but there's a blizzard of information.  

[Dkoellerwx]

20 minutes ago, aliensporebomb said:

Maybe I'm just obliterated by the giant amount of messages in this thread and I don't know where to look but if they do merge as indicated what happens to all the equipment Sprint rolled out versus all the equipment T-Mobile is operating.  Are they compatible?  Can they work together effectively?  What happens to our existing phones and agreements?  Do they do some kind of weird clean slate where we start over?  I suppose I should read something but there's a blizzard of information.  

- The networks will be merged. They are expecting to have 85k macro sites after decommissioning 35k sites, and adding 10k for expansion.

- T-Mobile equipment will be added to remaining Sprint sites, and Sprint bands added to T-Mobile sites (especially B41 / 2.5 LTE).

- Part of the NV project was installing base stations that are flexible, adding T-Mobile band should be no issue. I don't know as much about T-Mobile sites, but most are using modern equipment so it shouldn't be a major issue there either.

- Most recent devices support the majority of T-Mobile LTE bands, so no issues there.

- 1x800 will continue to run until Sprint subs are migrated over to T-Mobile (2-3 years at least).

- Customers will be migrated over to T-Mobile billing over the course of 2-3 years (at least). What plans those will be is not clear now.

[dnicekid]

14 hours ago, Dkoellerwx said:

- The networks will be merged. They are expecting to have 85k macro sites after decommissioning 35k sites, and adding 10k for expansion.

- T-Mobile equipment will be added to remaining Sprint sites, and Sprint bands added to T-Mobile sites (especially B41 / 2.5 LTE).

- Part of the NV project was installing base stations that are flexible, adding T-Mobile band should be no issue. I don't know as much about T-Mobile sites, but most are using modern equipment so it shouldn't be a major issue there either.

- Most recent devices support the majority of T-Mobile LTE bands, so no issues there.

- 1x800 will continue to run until Sprint subs are migrated over to T-Mobile (2-3 years at least).

- Customers will be migrated over to T-Mobile billing over the course of 2-3 years (at least). What plans those will be is not clear now.

Maybe this ^^^^^^^^^ could be a sticky and updated as more comes out? 

[danlodish345]

1 hour ago, dnicekid said:

Maybe this ^^^^^^^^^ could be a sticky and updated as more comes out? 

Well I know the government will definitely make them divest some of their Spectrum. But if they don't divest some the merger won't happen.