Rawvega

Oh damn, I was afraid of that....The fun's about to start now. DT prepared for Sprint's counteroffer. Somebody is about to overpay. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-04/sprint-said-to-eye-metropcs-bid-to-rival-t-mobile-offer.html?cmpid=yhoo

Good point, Robert. I've often wondered how fast is fast enough? I see folks with VZW and at&t LTE 40, 50, 60 and very (very) rarely 70 Mbps speed tests and I think that's nice and all, but what are you really going to do with that throughput on a cell phone...especially when you have data caps! High speeds just mean you reach the cap faster. Now that isn't an issue at the moment for Sprint and T-mobile for the moment, but I'd rather see Sprint focus on capacity and maintaining unlimited data (even if they have to intentionally throttle densely populated areas down to say...12-15 Mbps; what can't you do on a cell phone with 12-15 Mbps???) and t-mobile can shoot for America's fastest 4G bragging rights.

Hot Topic

Walter Piecyk, an analyst whose opinion I generally respect (unlike Muppett) even if I don't agree with him, suggests that Sprint's best recourse now is to acquire/merge with t-mobile USA. http://allthingsd.co...TD_yahoo_ticker An interesting theory, though I don't know how feasible it is. Between Sprint, MertoPCS and t-mobile, that'd be a heck of a lot of redundant sites. Cell site density in urban areas would likely be second to none assuming that they decommission the right sites. Hell, if this is really where we're at, Sprint might as well acquire Leap now and then a year or however long down the line just smash the whole thing together with t-mobile. I don't know that we're really at that point yet....

Police station

It sounds like your internet connection had insufficient bandwidth.

If you go to their coverage map and switch it to prepaid that should give you some idea.

Yeah Cricket not paying their bill almost does seem like a way of trying to force Sprint's hand, sorta like when Clearwire threatened to default on a payment and got Sprint to step. Not the exact same scenario, of course, but similar in a way. I guess it likely depends on what the actual dollar amount of "acquired on the cheap" turns out to be.

Yeah the AWS would definitely need to go, but I'm not so sure about the 700MHz. Who would buy it? Verizon? Nope, they're selling all of their 700MHz except for their upper C block. T-Mobile? Very doubtful and even if they did want it, that's probably a good reason why Sprint shouldn't sell it to them. AT&T? Well they'd possibly/probably be interested in any lower B & C licenses, but definitely the lower A licenses. It'd probably be better just to keep them and try to add to it...and hope that pesky channel 51 situation gets taken care of asap.

That imo is the ONLY reason why Sprint should even consider looking at Leap...and even then I'm still not sure that it would be a good idea.

As you mentioned in this hypothetical deal, Sprint could probably sell off the AWS to at&t (or even T-Mobile still). I don't see much reason why they would need to sell of the cellular spectrum. Most of their handsets support it on the CDMA side and Band Class 26 includes it on the LTE side. The 700MHz spectrum might be a bit problematic to deal with, especially the lower A licenses in markets that still have a channel 51 broadcast station. Since this is all hypothetical, maybe the USCC/C-Spire 700MHz licenses could be combined with the lower 700MHz A/B licenses that VZW will be auctioning off to make a compelling semi-nationwide map. Who knows how it'll all shake out...

Was thinking the same thing.

I need to go to B school lol!

A little less than 300 miles northwest of Phoenix would be acceptable as well.

Conference call transcript here: http://allthingsd.com/20121003/live-deutsche-telekom-metropcs-discuss-merger-plans/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker Some interesting things... Clear shot at Sprint-Nextel merger Similar debt load to Sprint, but with far less cash. I wonder if the analysts will be just as harsh towards the new company... Interesting to see if they will be able to back up these claims. Still no iPhone on the horizon it would seem according to Legere's comments. Will be very fascinating to see if they can pull everything off as seamlessly as they're predicting.

Are most of C-Spire's customers postpaid? If so, ~1M postpaid subscribers are probably with triple that amount in prepaid subscribers. Couple that with their reputation for network coverage in the areas that they do serve and I'd say that it's at least worth looking at. Ditto for USCC.

USCC is indeed public. They trade under the ticker USM. Their current market cap is ~$3.30B and their enterprise value is ~$3.74B.

Hell, both could happen!

That is a legitimate risk to consider. As I said earlier, the key is for Sprint not to make a rash move. That said, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for Hesse to call up Mary Dillon and Hu Meena to put a little bug in their ears and find out exactly where their heads are at.

That would indeed be interesting. The important thing for Sprint to do is not panic and make a rash move in response.

Galaxy S III for all three networks.

$1.5B plus a 26% stake in the new entity. Depending on the value of the new company it could be more or less than the prospective deal that they supposedly had with Sprint.

http://www.reuters.c...tionNews&rpc=43 DT has played this masterfully IMO.

700MHz vs. 1900MHz, plus how long has at&t and VZW been deployed in those markets vs. Sprint? I don't believe that either at&t or VZW are redoing their entire network in the upgrade to LTE. Unfortunately, it's going to take time.

EXACTLY!!! Why can no manufacturer make a complete device? LG makes the Viper with SVDO and then the LG Eclipse/Optimus G doesn't appear to have it. Samsung makes the Galaxy S III with SVDO now the Note II apparently doesn't have it. Why are these manufacturers going backwards with the specs??? I still plan on getting the Note II, but this is a bit of a buzzkill.