Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

[dro1984]

4 hours ago, utiz4321 said:

There is no “magic number” that is good in every country on earth.  That is just magical thinking. Each country is different in many key ways: number of pops, land mass, regulations, etc... all that goes into determining the proper size of the market, Canada probably has too many players. 

Agreed!     Canada has a HUGE land mass, and a very small population! Many areas are total wilderness...   Lets see... Lots of equipment needed to have a cohesive network... and not a lot of people to pay for it.  Then you add in the GST, PST and any other of their 15 taxes on everything... and there you have it.   Rogers and Bell Canada ... who is the Third?  Telus?    Not really comparing Apples to Apples Tom. You need to have users pay for the network.   In Canada's case it would have to be immense!   

[S4GRU]

3 hours ago, dro1984 said:

Agreed!     Canada has a HUGE land mass, and a very small population! Many areas are total wilderness...   Lets see... Lots of equipment needed to have a cohesive network... and not a lot of people to pay for it.  Then you add in the GST, PST and any other of their 15 taxes on everything... and there you have it.   Rogers and Bell Canada ... who is the Third?  Telus?    Not really comparing Apples to Apples Tom. You need to have users pay for the network.   In Canada's case it would have to be immense!   

But also many Canadians are urban.  A higher percentage than Americans. You could just blanket urban/suburban areas and roam in between.  And there are some regional players to align with, like Sasktel.  You don't necessarily have to cover every square kilometer of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Nunavut to make a play in the Canadian market.  T-Mobile made a play in the US stealing market share BEFORE they started expanding their network.  It is possible. But it is also difficult.  Your competition will make sure it is.

[utiz4321]

True but I assume Canadians travel and any national carrier their would have to cover at least the major road ways. In any case their population is less than a tenth of the US.  If the average national US carrier has 60000 macro sites and holding everything else constant, for the vost of operating the networks to be the same that would imply the average national Canadian carrier would be runing at about 6000 macro sites.  

 

But everything else isnt the same. So they have less leverage with network and handset vendors.  I don't know why anyone would think prices in Canada would be the same as here. 

[Mikeclar]

This could get interesting (or real problematic). Too early to tell for sure. 

[RAvirani]

43 minutes ago, Nextel49 said:

well it looks like on Oct 30th this will be a Stock merger then next year a start of the Networks which be a huge issue

Source?

[Nextel49]

23 minutes ago, RAvirani said:

Source?

http://bgr.com/2017/09/25/t-mobile-sprint-merger-official-date/

[Nextel49]

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1BX1EK

[RAvirani]

22 minutes ago, Nextel49 said:

http://bgr.com/2017/09/25/t-mobile-sprint-merger-official-date/

20 minutes ago, Nextel49 said:

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1BX1EK

These are all still speculation. No official announcement has been made yet 

[S4GRU]

These are still speculative, from a week ago.  No new news, yet.

[Nextel49]

Now this https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/t-mobile-agrees-to-stop-claiming-its-network-is-faster-than-verizons/

[RedSpark]

I feel like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop on this merger... right after the iPhone X launches.

I really don't want it to happen. Sprint is completely capable of making it on its own and I don't want to see T-Mobile running things.

[danlodish345]

On 9/28/2017 at 9:59 AM, S4GRU said:

But also many Canadians are urban.  A higher percentage than Americans. You could just blanket urban/suburban areas and roam in between.  And there are some regional players to align with, like Sasktel.  You don't necessarily have to cover every square kilometer of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Nunavut to make a play in the Canadian market.  T-Mobile made a play in the US stealing market share BEFORE they started expanding their network.  It is possible. But it is also difficult.  Your competition will make sure it is.

T-Mobile now has the positive capex needed to expand and build out its own network and rely less on roaming...  but also if sprint was taken over by T-Mobile wouldnt they also acquire sprints of debt?

[NYC126]

4 hours ago, RedSpark said:

I feel like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop on this merger... right after the iPhone X launches.

I really don't want it to happen. Sprint is completely capable of making it on its own and I don't want to see T-Mobile running things.

Sprint owner has been running the business with a merger in mind for the last three years. If Little Massa Son wanted to make  Sprint a force or believe in it they would have started investing on the network from day one.  Make city markets dense with band 41 then spread out as the financial health of the company improve. As the cities get dense with band 41, start thinning out legacy 3G on the 1900mhz and blank highways and rural areas alone with 800mhz.

 

The funny thing about these mergers rumors is the Germans don't want to pay market value for Sprint, and this happens because the owner didn't turn the company into a strong player and decided to focus on buying tech companies around the world. The Germans are basically offering a discount offer as take it or leave it. The carrier with the most spectrum and frequencies ideal for 5G  is getting a lowball offer. Seems to me the Germans got their advice from Legere about Sprint no worth market value and if they don't take a lowball offer we will crush them.

Sprint 2.5ghz-2.6ghz spectrum is worth a premium, and Son is making the mistake of thinking about selling for a below market value. 

[Nextel49]

Here is an updated http://bgr.com/2017/10/02/t-mobile-sprint-merger-progress-announcement-october/

[Nextel49]

todays update might be that may not happen https://gizmodo.com/what-s-going-on-with-the-rumored-not-good-t-mobile-and-1818975719

[bigsnake49]

2 hours ago, Nextel49 said:

todays update might be that may not happen https://gizmodo.com/what-s-going-on-with-the-rumored-not-good-t-mobile-and-1818975719

I am sure that it will happen. It is in T-Mobile's best interest that it happens. They get Sprint's treasure trove of spectrum and eliminate a price competitor.  Sprint could only compete on price not network. This is actually the best time to buy Sprint, before it gets its house in order and improves its network to competitive levels. They are going to get Sprint for cheap!

It is obvious that Masa Son made a mistake investing in Sprint. Should have invested in T-Mobile instead. He wants out of the business since it is actually a pretty mature business. Sprint if left on its own will improve the network and be competitive particularly if they maintain their prices lower than all others. But it is not a growth business. Masa wants to get his money out and invested in something more growth oriented.

[cletus]

I don't believe Sprint can make it on it's own, despite being cash positive for the first quarter. TBH If I was looking at the market I would already call this a duopoly.

T-Mobile might do it but the problem is the other decisions that have happened outside of wireless. AT&T buying DirecTV was huge. Almost every AT&T sub I know has done DirecTV or DirecTV Now and now AT&T is also rumored to buy Time Warner (!).  Have you guys looked at the net additions beyond tmobile and sprint? AT&T had more Q1 2017 net additions than everyone else combined! AT&T and Verizon both had churn around 1.3% (Half of TMobile and Sprint), Each of them have more subs than Sprint Tmobile combined.

Here is a quick example: lets say T-Mobile continues to have RECORD years of growth. Assuming they stay at 3 million subscriber additions per year then they could catch up to AT&T (the smaller of the two) in a mere 20 years. Meanwhile, Verizon had it's worst quarter or two in basically forever and still had more additions than Sprint! 

It is either FCC lets Sprint merge with Tmobile and we end up with 3 carriers or Sprint ends up declaring bankruptcy/selling off assets/etc and we end up with a hobbled Sprint and a spectrum contained T-Mobile Versus 2 absolute behemoths.

[dro1984]

I agree with both of you.   Sprint "might" be able to do okay for the short term, but as T-Mobile launches is 600 mHz, and expands it nationwide reach, I just don't see Sprint growing.   This might be as good as it gets.... Softbank will not allow anymore investment.  They have set up private holding companies on phones, etc...the creativity will come to an end.  Next could only be mortgaging some of their high band spectrum...  or selling some of it.  I also don't believe everything that is promised by Marcello about all the cells etc...  Too many empty promises over the years.   Won't until proof is out there...    

  I rather have three really good choices than 2 monsters and a medium player and small distant carrier that is treading water.

Edited October 3, 2017 by dro1984

[happyGuy]

23 hours ago, SprintNYC said:

Sprint 2.5ghz-2.6ghz spectrum is worth a premium, and Son is making the mistake of thinking about selling for a below market value. 

I want to start off by saying I really don't know much about this stuff... but other than Sprint customers, what exactly would tmobile get from this merger?

Is that high band sprint spectrum really desirable? for example say they merge with Dish instead... tmobile could double their midband and add 22mhz more to their low band (vs just 14 with sprint).

I'm just not sure about being saddled with tens of billions in debt via sprint would be worth it. sprint coverage is almost the same as tmobile so merging with Sprint would not expand their coverage very much vs what it is now... 

 and if they would have to divest some of their spectrum, then add the cost of converting all those sprint towers and replacing people's phones.. seems like it would be a lot more cost effective to go after dish (unless tmobile was mostly interested in gaining sprint's customer base).

I also think if sprint and tmobile merge it might force verizon's hand and they go after Dish. Then again it seems that nobody likes dealing with Charlie...

 

[dro1984]

Think of it this way:  The higher the Spectrum band, the more people that can use it at same time.  It allows huge amounts of data to flow to multiple users.   It doesn't travel very far and will have difficult time penetrating structures.   The higher the band the more these two things extrapolate.   

Lower bands, great at traveling long distances, but not very good at supporting multiple users at one time.   ...   

Edited October 4, 2017 by dro1984

[bigsnake49]

13 hours ago, happyGuy said:

I want to start off by saying I really don't know much about this stuff... but other than Sprint customers, what exactly would tmobile get from this merger?

Is that high band sprint spectrum really desirable? for example say they merge with Dish instead... tmobile could double their midband and add 22mhz more to their low band (vs just 14 with sprint).

I'm just not sure about being saddled with tens of billions in debt via sprint would be worth it. sprint coverage is almost the same as tmobile so merging with Sprint would not expand their coverage very much vs what it is now... 

 and if they would have to divest some of their spectrum, then add the cost of converting all those sprint towers and replacing people's phones.. seems like it would be a lot more cost effective to go after dish (unless tmobile was mostly interested in gaining sprint's customer base).

I also think if sprint and tmobile merge it might force verizon's hand and they go after Dish. Then again it seems that nobody likes dealing with Charlie...

 

Dish also has a lot of debt that T-Mobile will assume if they were to merge with Dish. 

2.5 GHz spectrum is great for capacity and Sprint has a lot of it. It is very attractive spectrum when deployed on a network as dense as T-Mobile's. 

Low band spectrum is great for rural and exurban locales and also for in-building propagation. You need high, mid and low band spectrum to have a good network. 

[bigsnake49]

15 hours ago, dro1984 said:

I agree with both of you.   Sprint "might" be able to do okay for the short term, but as T-Mobile launches is 600 mHz, and expands it nationwide reach, I just don't see Sprint growing.   This might be as good as it gets.... Softbank will not allow anymore investment.  They have set up private holding companies on phones, etc...the creativity will come to an end.  Next could only be mortgaging some of their high band spectrum...  or selling some of it.  I also don't believe everything that is promised by Marcello about all the cells etc...  Too many empty promises over the years.   Won't until proof is out there...    

  I rather have three really good choices than 2 monsters and a medium player and small distant carrier that is treading water.

Sprint can get access to Dish's 600Mhz if they are willing to host Dish's spectrum.

[S4GRU]

And if Tmo doesn't go with Sprint and their 2.5GHz spectrum, remember their next 5G play is 39GHz.  If you think 2.5 doesn't penetrate...

[dro1984]

Snake... I think Sprint has approached them... for what every reason, Dish's CEO, Charlie Ergen , doesn't seem to like Sprint.   It usually is rejection.     Sprint has always wanted to host other's spectrum... Dan Hesse tried many players... Never really panned out. 

Here's a snippet from October 7, 2011... from Egaget: " Sprint finally went public with plans to "simplify its network" by converting its 1900MHz holdings and LightSquared's 1600MHz spectrum ("pending FCC approval") to LTE, an industry favorite.  "     

Does anyone know what ever happened to Lightsquared and their unusable spectrum (it affected GPS) but I thought they found a way around it...?

Edited October 4, 2017 by dro1984

[twospirits]

2 hours ago, dro1984 said:

Does anyone know what ever happened to Lightsquared and their unusable spectrum (it affected GPS) but I thought they found a way around it...?

Ligado Networks