Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[bigsnake49]

34 minutes ago, RedSpark said:

T-Mobile was als in a position to execute on that spectrum. It had Fiber backhaul running to its tower sites... whereas Sprint pre-Network Vision did not on a substantial number of them. It had T-1's or bundled T-1's if I recall correctly.

The delays and costs of getting backhaul to the sites (and the substantial number of customers fleeing while this went on as part of Network Vision) played an integral role as to where we are today.

I think that Network vision as a tear and rebuild process cost a lot more money and time than just adding LTE to the already existing infrastructure, the way T-Mobile did it. It sounded better than it was.

[bigsnake49]

15 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

Softbank is a conglomerate.  Sprint is not their most important investment overall.  They can still complete their strategy by owning a smaller slice of a bigger wireless company, especially one that generates its own cash flow.  The money Softbank initially planned on putting into Sprint was consumed by a bidding war with Dish over Clearwire.  It is hard to raise dedicated money post buyout.  Sprint going alone has a lot higher risks than a merger (both are significant risks), especially when increasing cost of capital in markets is likely.  Besides the technical aspects, Sprint needs far better marketing and T-Mobile can likely deliver in that area.

As a customer, everything will depend whether I get quality service where I need it post merger + a year or two. Otherwise I will go with the carrier that serves me best.   Eliminate my favorite towers or redirect them would accelerate this.  If they get updated to Next-Gen before the merger, the odds will increase that I will stay and buy new phones.

As a customer of Sprint with a compatible phone you will be much better off in the year it would take to close the merger. Meanwhile if the two companies are to be believed, they will expend a substantial amount of Capex to further improve their networks. Even in a year's time as a Sprint customer you will be better than if Sprint was going it alone. 

[Arysyn]

4 hours ago, SprintNYC said:

If Softbank didn't own over 84% of the stock they would be massive class action suits against Sprint right now. They always were lying during their earning calls, there was never a turnaround for this company because that mean investments on your network. You could tell that Son never had an interest in fixing Sprint otherwise he would have made the investments on the network including getting into the 600mhz auction to get expansions and VOLTE rolling. Instead, he went on a credit card spending spree on a chip and robotic company hell he even invested in Uber too. Softbank could find a lot of money to buy ARM, but they couldn't invest at least 5 billion yearly in the Sprint network.

 

In order to keep frustrated customers, they came with an inexpensive band-aid fix in the Magic Box. Claure cut so much out of Sprint that he even closed call centers located here in America thus customer service started to take a hit. I hope the DOJ blocks this merger then it would force Softbank to sell Sprint for half the price to a cable company.

 

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/regulators-probing-t-mobile-deal-162152132.html

Wow, thats a really great post! I disagree of course about the merger, as I want it to happen - but then you also presented a really good case for it not to happen, to get Softbank to take a loss. Its no secret around here I really don't like Softbank, and having the merger fail would be a major hit to them. If they end up selling Sprint at half price, then at least Sprint would be in better shape being able to do well as it should without Softbank. Plus, a selloff means no Softbank percentage in Sprint at all, unlike with the New T-Mobile.

If I didn't have T-Mobile happy with AT&T or Verizon, I very well may love this idea to happen.

[Dkoellerwx]

59 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

I think that Network vision as a tear and rebuild process cost a lot more money and time than just adding LTE to the already existing infrastructure, the way T-Mobile did it. It sounded better than it was.

It may have cost more than just slapping LTE on the tower, but the infrastructure is better going forward. It is easy to plug other LTE bands into the base infrastructure without have to add additional cabinets or other items, as would have been required if they just slapped Bnad 25 over top the old 3G network. Adding Band 26 or Band 41 (or now T-Mobile bands) would have required even more equipment, and they would have had to eventually rip everything out anyway.

[bigsnake49]

36 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

It may have cost more than just slapping LTE on the tower, but the infrastructure is better going forward. It is easy to plug other LTE bands into the base infrastructure without have to add additional cabinets or other items, as would have been required if they just slapped Bnad 25 over top the old 3G network. Adding Band 26 or Band 41 (or now T-Mobile bands) would have required even more equipment, and they would have had to eventually rip everything out anyway.

They might have had to eventually but they could have done it over 4-5 years without any disruption to the network, unlike Network Vision.  They could have added the LTE cabinets/antennas/RRHs without disturbing the CDMA cabinets/antennas.

Edited May 3, 2018 by bigsnake49

[dkyeager]

21 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

They might have had to eventually but they could have done it over 4-5 years without any disruption to the network, unlike Network Vision. Plus they could have added the LTE cabinets/antennas/RRHs without disturbing the CDMA cabinets/antennas.

iirc RRHs add about 20% to the performance of a site, which was a primary reason for Network Vision.  Don't forget the 3G reaches further than LTE.  I often see sites in rural areas from other carriers that have no RRHs in the countryside.  Sprint would have needed more sites in many places without Network Vision due to the limits of Ground Mounted Radio LTE.

[bigsnake49]

2 minutes ago, dkyeager said:

iirc RRHs add about 20% to the performance of a site, which was a primary reason for Network Vision.  Don't forget the 3G reaches further than LTE.  I often see sites in rural areas from other carriers that have no RRHs in the countryside.  Sprint would have needed more sites in many places without Network Vision due to the limits of Ground Mounted Radio LTE.

I am not advocating LTE deployment without RRHs. 

[Dkoellerwx]

1 minute ago, bigsnake49 said:

I am not advocating LTE deployment without RRHs. 

Hard to have that without the NV equipment in place on the ground. Thus... rip and replace. 

[bigsnake49]

2 minutes ago, Dkoellerwx said:

Hard to have that without the NV equipment in place on the ground. Thus... rip and replace. 

T-Mobile did it. Verizon did it. No rip and replace.

 

[dkyeager]

8 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

I am not advocating LTE deployment without RRHs. 

The big difference in T-Mobiles LTE approach was doing urban areas first, then working outward.  Sprint started with rural areas then worked inwards.  T-Mobile benefited more customers sooner, thus attracting more customers (assisted by better marketing) and thereby reaped the rewards of better cash flow.

[Dkoellerwx]

2 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

T-Mobile did it. Verizon did it. No rip and replace.

 

Yes.. by adding a bunch more equipment that's now all been or is getting replaced... again. What Sprint did meant they don't have to replace all of the ground equipment over and over to support new and more LTE bands, or upgraded technology. 

[lilotimz]

52 minutes ago, bigsnake49 said:

T-Mobile did it. Verizon did it. No rip and replace.

 

That's Incorrect.

T-mobile did a full rip and replace when they added Nokia to more than half of their regions to replace a hodgepodge of legacy nortel, lucent, and eventually Huawei (through MetroPCS) equipment. Though they had newer equipment in most places capable of supporting HSPA and DC-HSPA, significant ground and radome level modifications were done to bring it up to speed to support LTE service. In many cases it means ripping out the entirety of whats already in the existing base stations. The nature of them also having more recent equipment capable of HSPA means that the move from that to LTE went fairly smoothly as backward compatibility was easy to handle. 

Legacy Sprint and new modern eNB? Well.... ask those that lived in Motorola regions or those that were in Samsung regions where modern eNBs could not communicate over CSFB to legacy nortel and lucent equipment...

Edit: addedum. Sprint was also deploying CDMA 1x800. Legacy equipment cannot be sourced for that as Lucent, Nortel, and Motorola no longer existed and those equipment were long depreciated / EOL'd. 

 

[S4GRU]

1 hour ago, lilotimz said:

Sprint was also deploying CDMA 1x800. Legacy equipment cannot be sourced for that as Lucent, Nortel, and Motorola no longer existed and those equipment were long depreciated / EOL'd. 

[bigsnake49]

7 hours ago, S4GRU said:

Yeah I forgot about the 800 1x or the legacy  CDMA equipment.

[S4GRU]

2 hours ago, bigsnake49 said:

Yeah I forgot about the 800 1x or the legacy  CDMA equipment.

To be honest, so did I.  It's easy to lose some critical perspective over time as our priority of the incremental pieces change.  We tend to see things in aggregate over a long period, instead of in the individual timelines/milestones they were in, linked with everyone else's differing stages.  I was also much better at that in my 20's. 

[bigsnake49]

2 hours ago, S4GRU said:

To be honest, so did I.  It's easy to lose some critical perspective over time as our priority of the incremental pieces change.  We tend to see things in aggregate over a long period, instead of in the individual timelines/milestones they were in, linked with everyone else's differing stages.  I was also much better at that in my 20's. 

Yeah, I remember talking about the 1x800 and the legacy equipment in 2012-2013. Yeah, age is my excuse too ?!

[lilotimz]

1 hour ago, bigsnake49 said:

Yeah, I remember talking about the 1x800 and the legacy equipment in 2012-2013. Yeah, age is my excuse too ?!

Continuing on that chain...

When Tmobile and ATT first began HSPA deployments in late 2000s, most of the  was radios inside cabinets but as it got to the turn of the decade they began using remote radio units. Some of these early generation remote radio units were capable of supporting LTE (Ericsson RRUS01/02s) with base station modifications!!! A few of  these setups still remain in place too though augmented with newer equipment. 

[RedSpark]

At least Sprint's VoLTE plans for launching this Fall haven't changed:

Sprint's roaming agreement with T-Mobile doesn't impact VoLTE rollout

[RedSpark]

I wonder what impact the announced merger will have on Sprint's (or T-Mobile's) participation in the Millimeter Wave Auction:

Sprint: Millimeter wave spectrum is ‘important part of our strategy going forward’

Auction begins in November.

[Arysyn]

1 minute ago, RedSpark said:

I wonder what impact the announced merger will have on Sprint's (or T-Mobile's) participation in the Millimeter Wave Auction:

Sprint: Millimeter wave spectrum is ‘important part of our strategy going forward’

Auction begins in November.

From some of what Legere said about AT&T and Verizon using MMwave spectrum, is that it'll be very costly to fully deploy - in the extremes over a trillion dollars. While T-Mobile has been interested in the MMWave spectrum and may still buy some in case the merger doesn't get approved, I'm doubting there is going to be any commitment to the MMWave spectrum beyond that.

I think if the regulators tell T-Mobile and Sprint they'll approve the merger upon some spectrum divestment, I think the spectrum likely to go first is whatever MMWave spectrum they have at that point, followed by the 800mhz spectrum and the 700mhz spectrum. Doubtfully they'd have to divest all of that spectrum to get the merger with Sprint to go through, but possibly might if they then try going for Dish, possibly along with Dish's AWS-3 spectrum.

In the case with Dish, their added 600mhz spectrum would give a great boost to T-Mobile's, where the very minimum of 600mhz spectrum few areas have, would go from 10x10 to 15x15. Most areas however, would have a minimum of 20x20. Some areas have more. I would like it if T-Mobile traded in whatever additional 600mhz spectrum they have beyond 20x20 for those few areas with under 20x20, so they could claim nationwide 20x20.

I read that Dish has 20x20 AWS-4 spectrum nationwide. I think once the Sprint/T-Mobile merger is done - if it goes through, won't the combined nationwide PCS spectrum assets be over 20x20? If so, T-Mobile could keep 20x20 of that, and trade off the rest for more AWS-1, It would be great if they trade enough of the extra spectrum to get 20x20 of AWS-1, so that between the mid-band spectrum they'd have 40mhz PCS and 40mhz AWS-1 hopefully nationwide, putting an end to the local variations in spectrum I very much despise. Along with 40 mhz of low-band 600mhz spectrum, thats 120mhz of wideband spectrum that could be used well in carrier aggregation, separate from the 120mhz of band41 spectrum.

120mhz of 4G LTE and 120mhz of 5G band41.

[Rawvega]

Shentel reiterated how the merger will (or won't) affect their business during their earnings call.

 

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169510?source=ansh

Before I conclude, let me summarize how the Sprint/T-Mobile merger will impact Shentel. There’s a waterfall with that. first, Shentel agrees not to file an injunction to try to block the merger assuming the merger gets approved upon the closing of the deal, the new T-Mobile will have 60 days to decide if they want to buy our Wireless business.

Not all the Shentel just the wireless subsidiary, not the towers or our fiber network. if they do decide to buy our wireless business, there is a formula that you provide to our shareholders, a very handsome return. If they choose not to buy our wireless business, Shentel will remain an affiliate of the New T-Mobile and for the next 180 days, we have the option to acquire the T- mobile customers and that work in our 7 million POPs service area at 75% of the value of the customers and asset as determined by the merger value.

If we can’t finance the purchase, then the New T-Mobile will finance the purchase at their cost of capital for up to five years. if Shentel decides not to buy T-Mobile network and customers, then the new T-Mobile must turn off the T-Mobile network that overlaps Shentel within two years. As Chris said at this point, we’re not going to spend a lot of time speculating, but we’ll continue to stay focused on running our business.

[Paynefanbro]

24 minutes ago, Rawvega said:

Shentel reiterated how the merger will (or won't) affect their business during their earnings call.

 

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169510?source=ansh

Before I conclude, let me summarize how the Sprint/T-Mobile merger will impact Shentel. There’s a waterfall with that. first, Shentel agrees not to file an injunction to try to block the merger assuming the merger gets approved upon the closing of the deal, the new T-Mobile will have 60 days to decide if they want to buy our Wireless business.

Not all the Shentel just the wireless subsidiary, not the towers or our fiber network. if they do decide to buy our wireless business, there is a formula that you provide to our shareholders, a very handsome return. If they choose not to buy our wireless business, Shentel will remain an affiliate of the New T-Mobile and for the next 180 days, we have the option to acquire the T- mobile customers and that work in our 7 million POPs service area at 75% of the value of the customers and asset as determined by the merger value.

If we can’t finance the purchase, then the New T-Mobile will finance the purchase at their cost of capital for up to five years. if Shentel decides not to buy T-Mobile network and customers, then the new T-Mobile must turn off the T-Mobile network that overlaps Shentel within two years. As Chris said at this point, we’re not going to spend a lot of time speculating, but we’ll continue to stay focused on running our business.

So Shentel has covered all of its bases. That's good to hear.

[red_dog007]

If Shentel does not buy TMobile network and customers, how long is TMobile not allowed to compete? 

As far as the spectrum, do they continue to only use Sprint's or will they be allowed to use all of New TMobile's spectrum assets?

[dro1984]

Post Merger, Sprint is "T-Mobile".  So I would assume that any of the available spectrum that is now jointly owned at that time is viable for use in Shentel markets.    If you are going to part of the name, I would hope that you would have the rights to use any and all available.     That is if they decide to become part of the whole company?   

 

Edited May 4, 2018 by dro1984

[Arysyn]

Regarding Shentel - not a company I know much about - but I really can't see why T-Mobile wouldn't buy them out. It makes sense just to unify the network and its customers in that region. Why Sprint didn't do that, I don't know. Then again, there is i-wireless, which I really think ought to just be T-Mobile.

I realize I come off sounding very much as if I hate local/regional wireless carriers, but I really don't. I just dislike them acting as non-nationwide MVNOs, nor do I particularly like that they essentially compete against nationwide carriers without really trying to be different.

My idea is that national carriers should focus on macro sites, not small cells, though equipment such as the Magic Box is fine. Nor do I like the idea of national carriers getting into mmWave spectrum. I think the FCC should restrict national carriers from these, in exchange for allowing national mergers .

My preferred idea, if it were possible - which I know isn't likely, would be for AT&T to get T-Mobile and Dish, with some spectrum trades with Verizon, which would merge with cable companies. There would be those two national wireless carriers, while the FCC opens up an entirely new market for local carriers to thrive with cheap access to the mmwave spectrum for use with small cells that are better implemented on a local, WiSP-like structure.

These local carriers then would become the competition to the big nationwide carriers selling plans that would be for people who don't travel much, if at all past their local area, people who use wifi alot, and those who would like WiSP home internet services, rather than the wireline internet the national carriers sell.

Again, these local carriers would be competition to the big nationwide carriers - direct competition with complete restrictions on any sort of dealings between them. Instead, local carriers could offer roaming for their customers who may travel once in a while, by agreements with other local carriers throughout the country.