Tmobile in talks with MetroPCS about merger

[4GHoward]

at&t acquired Alltel assets from Verizon. 2 different networks there too.

 

at&t then immediately shut off all towers and immediately replaced them with HSDPA 3G.

 

Do you know what AT&T did with that spectrum?

[MacinJosh]

Yeah, they added 3G coverage to rural Montana and rural Nevada where they didn't have coverage before. I'm not sure what other markets they acquired from the Alltel deal.

[S4GRU]

 

Do you know what AT&T did with that spectrum?

 

Here they took over the Alltel EVDO, shut it down and put HSPA+ in its place. They left up 1x for old Alltel customers to use and Sprint and Verizon customers to roam on.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[4GHoward]

Here they took over the Alltel EVDO, shut it down and put HSPA+ in its place. They left up 1x for old Alltel customers to use and Sprint and Verizon customers to roam on.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

Is that what T-Mobile might be planning to do with MetroPCS Spectrum if the merger talks are for real?

[MacinJosh]

On this map it shows the 3G voice coverage that used to be Alltel

 

 

And here is a PDF in case my picture doesn't show up because all my data services are weird tonight.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6340907/Coverage%20Viewer.pdf

[S4GRU]

 

Is that what T-Mobile might be planning to do with MetroPCS Spectrum if the merger talks are for real?

 

Could be. Way too early to say at this point.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[9erHater]

Blackstone??? And greater than 5%???

 

Blackstone is known to either come in and chop up a company for its assets, or in some cases (like Hilton), they come in on undervalued companies and sit on them a long time and play operator. Interesting. Could be very good or very bad.

 

For some reason, I think this has more to do with spectrum assets. And most likely Clearwire spectrum. But you can't really buy out Sprint without Sprint's permission or control of Sprint. Although they cannot take more than 20% control of Sprint...at least initially. My thoughts are extremely preliminary, but my head is reeling!!!

 

Robert

 

I think the SeekingAlpha comments might be wrong. I can see some documents related to BlackRock and Sprint, but I don't see anything about Blackstone and Sprint. BlackRock was right around 5%.

[irev210]

I think the SeekingAlpha comments might be wrong. I can see some documents related to BlackRock and Sprint, but I don't see anything about Blackstone and Sprint. BlackRock was right around 5%.

 

4.97% to be exact.

 

You can view the SC 13G/A on edgar that was filed on 5/9

 

I hate SeakingAlpha. Nothing worth reading on that website.

[S4GRU]

 

4.97% to be exact.

 

You can view the SC 13G/A on edgar that was filed on 5/9

 

I hate SeakingAlpha. Nothing worth reading on that website.

 

The quality varies greatly from writer to writer.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[marioc21]

4.97% to be exact.

 

You can view the SC 13G/A on edgar that was filed on 5/9

 

I hate SeakingAlpha. Nothing worth reading on that website.

 

The quality varies greatly from writer to writer.

 

Robert via Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

You can still gain some information though. This article notes the SEC filing from Blackrock last week and also shows that Blackrock reduced its holdiings in Sprint to under 5%. They held 166 million shares at the end of q4 and have now reduced it to 149 million.

 

http://seekingalpha.com/article/588151-5-fund-ownership-filings-in-telecom-2-stocks-plunging-to-lows-being-bought-2-sold-1-other?source=yahoo

[marioc21]

So atleast according to T-Mo parent Deutsche Telekom, no transactions are in the works for now. T-Mo can go it alone with the assets they picked up from ATT when the merger fell through.

 

http://www.fiercewir...lone/2012-05-15

 

edit:

 

And then you see this:

 

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022105/t-mobile-usa-philipp-humm-restructuring-memo

 

T-Mo needs to restructure. I guess that's how you can account for decreasing subscribers and increasing network transition costs.

[mellimel2212]

I always saw a natural fit between MetroPCS and Sprint.

 

Sprint could easily just throw them under their prepaid arm and just have MetroPCS/Virgin Mobile/Boost Mobile brands.

 

Sell the AWS spectrum to Cricket or AT&T.

 

Only problem was the price.

 

 

With Cricket signing a TD-LTE agreement with Clearwire, maybe we will see Cricket join forces with Sprint instead.

 

 

Metro goes to T-Mobile, Cricket goes to Sprint. Cricket sells T-Mobile it's AWS spectrum.

 

 

Either way, Sprint's prepaid arm is a machine. I can imagine Metro or Leap just fitting right into Sprint's well-oiled prepaid arm.

 

I would rather see four strong national competitors vs. 2 strong and 3 weak. T-Mobile getting Metro, Sprint getting Cricket, T-Mobile getting Metro and Cricket's spectrum, Sprint profiting off selling Cricket's spectrum to T-Mobile, everyone wins.

 

Sprint IMHO is not weak uscc maybe or tmo but not sprint its average right now but its improving

 

Sent from my Nexus S 4g using Tapatalk 2

[irev210]

Sprint IMHO is not weak uscc maybe or tmo but not sprint its average right now but its improving

 

Sent from my Nexus S 4g using Tapatalk 2

 

Well, you could also argue that USCC and TMO are stronger than sprint because they are at least profitable.

 

When I speak about two strong competitors and 3 weak ones, I talk about Verizon and AT&T pretty much controlling the entire postpaid market (I want to say around 200 million prepaid subs).

 

Compared to Sprint and T-Mobile, which combined, have around 50-60 million postpaid (cant remember exactly off the top of my head), you can say that we have two very dominate players.

 

In terms of profitability, again, both AT&T and Verizon are extremely dominate with gross margins that the rest of the industry envies.

 

So, while Sprint may be strong against, metro, vs. AT&T and Verizon, they are weak.

 

I suppose it's all relative.

 

Back to my original point though is that to be competitive against big red and big blue, we will likely need some consolidation. I can see Sprint picking up one prepaid carrier, T-Mobile picking up the other, doing some license transfers so T-Mobile ends up with more AWS and Sprint ends up with more PCS, and we have stronger T-Mobile and Sprint to compete with AT&T and Verizon.

 

Scale is extremely important in this industry.

[ChadBroChillz]

Verizon and ATT do seemed concerned with Sprint. A while back, Verizon actually commented that their network would be faster than sprint's, even though sprint's network is not on. That shows me that they are concerned that Sprint could potentially become a threat. I think this is even more true now with their new share everything plans. Heavy data users will likely start shopping around to see if they can get a better deal, and sprint will likely be the first choice for them, because of their unlimited data.

 

Their numbers might not be close now, but Smartphone users are very flaky when it comes to staying on a carrier( I believe S4GRU had an article on this subject or it was talked about here). If even 10 million customers from the big two jump to sprint, then we would have 97,93,76 for our top 3, which is pretty much even in terms of market share pull.

[mellimel2212]

 

Well, you could also argue that USCC and TMO are stronger than sprint because they are at least profitable.

 

When I speak about two strong competitors and 3 weak ones, I talk about Verizon and AT&T pretty much controlling the entire postpaid market (I want to say around 200 million prepaid subs).

 

Compared to Sprint and T-Mobile, which combined, have around 50-60 million postpaid (cant remember exactly off the top of my head), you can say that we have two very dominate players.

 

In terms of profitability, again, both AT&T and Verizon are extremely dominate with gross margins that the rest of the industry envies.

 

So, while Sprint may be strong against, metro, vs. AT&T and Verizon, they are weak.

 

I suppose it's all relative.

 

Back to my original point though is that to be competitive against big red and big blue, we will likely need some consolidation. I can see Sprint picking up one prepaid carrier, T-Mobile picking up the other, doing some license transfers so T-Mobile ends up with more AWS and Sprint ends up with more PCS, and we have stronger T-Mobile and Sprint to compete with AT&T and Verizon.

 

Scale is extremely important in this industry.

 

U can't judge sprint just off that single fact. Matter fact I remember when att was in the black and had horrible call drops and speeds was off and on every company has ups and downs sprint may not be bringing in huge numbers now but wait till Nv and lte kicks in and sprint pricing,phone selection,and coverage beats tmo IMHO and DEFINITELY beats uscc by a huge margin so in those statements u will c why I say sprint is stronger than both tmo and uscc

 

Sent from my Nexus S 4g using Tapatalk 2