Rawvega

I do understand what the other posters are trying to say. I'm just choosing to look at the possibilities from a different angle. Every mobile operator will tell you that spectrum is their lifeblood. I'm not really sure that a resource that's considered that important to your business can ever be considered redundant. Sure the 600 MHz auction is a higher priority, but as I've mentioned, I don't necessarily view it as an either/or proposition. Now, who knows how Son and Sprint see it at this point. At one juncture, the majority of people viewed Sprint as a lock for the H-block right up until they threw a curveball and announced for one reason or another that they weren't going to bid. They could have another surprise in store....or not. Either way, I'm comfortable agreeing to disagree.

There's that either/or line of thinking again. I don't really get that. The possibility of bidding on AWS-3 should not preclude being a serious player on 600MHz. I think it would be smarter to try to acquire as much usable spectrum as possible before the bulk of the 2.5GHz starts being counted against the spectrum screen. Plus, as I mentioned before, there are still question marks regarding what the broadcasters are going to do WRT to the reverse spectrum auction.

Perhaps not as high of a return, but a much lower price tag. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Yes, I know the reasoning behind Band 4 inclusion. However, I don't see why it it has to be an either/or scenario. Once again, if Son has the financial wherewithal to buy all of TMUS, it seems feasible that he could bid on AWS-3 and still make a splash at the 600MHz auction as well. Not saying that he will or even should, but the 600MHz auction should not be the reason for passing on the AWS-3 auction especially when it's still up in the air what the broadcasters are going to do. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

None of that sounds like a loss of money. That's acquisition and deployment of an asset. I'm not necessarily advocating participation in the AWS-3 auction, however there may now be compelling reasons to do so. If Son has the funds to buy all of T-Mobile, surely he has the funds to participate in a couple of auctions. More importantly, these will apparently be the last two auctions where Sprint's prodigious 2.5GHz spectrum holdings won't be counted against the spectrum screen so why not acquire all spectrum possible until then? Sprint has indicated the eventual inclusion of Band 4 in future handsets so perhaps they should jump into the AWS ecosystem themselves.

How exactly would they "lose" money by bidding in the AWS auction?

I wonder if this will incentive them to bid in the AWS-3 auction.

I'm sure the FCC won't bat an eye at either of these transactions either. As I believe AJ described it, death of a thousand cuts.

And half of the stock and options are useless until mid-2018. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

That's just Karl Bode's way. Everything he writes about Sprint (and to be fair AT&T and Verizon as well) is that way. On the other hand, comes up all roses when he writes about T-Mobile and that was the case even before the 'uncarrier' thing started. This article goes a bit more in depth: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/03/07/4873870/sprint-ceo-dan-hesse-had-a-49.html

At&t is attempting to bluff it seems. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-may-sit-auction-fcc-175618626.html

A CDMA signal isn't required. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Got it. Thanks!

Just out of curiosity: Why doesn't she also take advantage of the Sprint ETF buyout offer? Or is that not compatible with the $200 offer?

Did anyone return the form to Sprint? Has anything at all developed from there? Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

That'd be a lot of wrangling especially considering that he could have initially bought T-Mobile instead of Sprint had he wanted to. As you said, that doesn't make sense.

If Son's objective is to be #1 in the world I'd say that acquiring Vodafone would go further towards achieving that goal than acquiring T-Mobile US would.

Just their spectrum licenses, but regardless I'm sure the FCC and justice department will be A-OK with this.

Yep, like I experienced, getting it set up initially can be a little frustrating dealing with the activation issues. Easy to tell when you do have it set up though. The wifi calling icon in the status bar and the green wifi call button: And once you're on the call it tells you that it's a wifi call and the red end button also gets the updated wifi treatment: Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

I haven't done any exhaustive testing, but I have it on my Note 3 and have used it several times. I'd say that the voice quality is just as good as making a (non HD) call on the network. Once you get through the initial set up which I found slightly cumbersome, the feature works great imo. I think, not surprisingly, the quality of your experience is going to depend on the quality of your wifi signal. For instance, if you have a large home and you're somewhere in it that puts you at the edge of your router's range your call quality will likely reflect that. I haven't tried to make it hand off from my wifi to the network though that probably won't work. Still, Sprint would do well to incorporate this feature into as many handsets as they can add quickly as they can. Currently only the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Mega and Galaxy S4 mini support wifi calling. More handsets will be added. Which ones and when are anybody's guess at this time. I don't think any of T-Mobile's iPhones support the feature yet so I probably wouldn't get my hopes up on that front. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

That seems likely. I imagine that Bluegrass and other LTEiRA cannot offer roaming on the Band 13 LTE network that they've built out due to an exclusivity agreement with VZW. However, reading into what the executive from Bluegrass said, they seem to be able to participate in agreements with another carrier or consortium if they so choose.

Not just east Texas. They've got a some WCS in Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and a little bit of Arkansas.

By the end of 2014 they *should* be in a position to have a competitive response to the clown in pink. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

Meh, let them say what they will. To quote the mom in the Framily commercial: "It's gonna save us a ton. Sprint can call it whatever they want." So if partnering with Goggle can help improve the network and faster, the uninformed masses can give the credit to whomever they want.

As has Legere. Naturally, his little band of lemmings have responded in predictable fashion. Regardless of their antics, I'm curious as to whether Sprint is not requiring people who take advantage of this offer to buy (or finance) a new handset from them? Obviously you can't use another company's handset with Sprint (except perhaps a Nexus 5). However, you can get a relatively cheap one off of Craigslist, eBay, etc. What's to stop people from just using this, for example, to go from AT&T to VZW or vice versa with a 90 day stop at Sprint in between?