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bigsnake49

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Posts posted by bigsnake49

    Sprint cable company deal?

    in General Topics

    Posted

    The possibility of cable cos investment/acquisition of Sprint has been suggested here in this forum for a while. I think it's a win/win situation for both parties. Sprint can get strand mounted WiFi/LTE small cell on cable cos cable plant, wifi calling on specially equipped routers, cheaper backhaul/fronthaul, tighter integration between fixed and wireless voice networks, access to content and some money to finish building the network. Cable cos get cheaper MVNO rates, extending of their cable plant wirelessly and get access to cord cutters to sell content, wireless backup to security systems, etc. Those are off the top of my head.

    • Like 2

    Wild speculation about Dish

    in General Topics

    Posted

    DISH should be coming up on some build out requirement deadlines soon, right?  Could be interesting.

     

    I think that they have one coming up for 2020. Dish/Ergen speculated that the price per Mhz would keep going up and up. The first attempt was when they tried to buy Sprint and then Clearwire. I don't think they were ever serious about acquiring either they just wanted to drive up the price of spectrum. They did the same thing during the AWS-3 auction. But they grossly miscalculated. From 4x4 MIMO to massive MIMO, from LTE-U on 3.5MHz, and 5g on mm-wave to small cell and mini macros, spectrum prices have been driven down. Traditional wireless operators hate him for driving up prices and will not cooperate with him unless they get a great deal.

    • Like 1

    Wild speculation about Dish

    in General Topics

    Posted

    Dish and Charlie Ergen has always fascinated me but is it or he out of his depth? Dish has accumulated a vast amount of spectrum including nearly national 10x10 in 600MHz spectrum. I don't for a moment believe the cockamamie IoT story. Verizon does not seem interested in acquiring Dish or its spectrum. They are concentrating in small cells, LTE-U and 5G/millimeter wave. AT&T also does not seem interested. T-Mobile and Sprint have plenty of spectrum and will also participate in the LTE-U effort.

     

    So where does that leave Dish/Ergen? What about Comcast? If you're going to go into wireless why only acquire a puny 5x5 sliver? Is there another player that might be interested in entering the market. Tim Farrar suggested Amazon in partnership with Dish and the cable cos. What does each partner get out of it? Dish gets plenty of bandwidth for its Sling service. Cable cos get plenty of spectrum for a nationwide network and get to market to millennials and cord cutters that live on their phones. They can also bundle wireless service with their other offering for a quadruple play. Amazon gets a network for their delivery drones and wireless service for their video/music offerings and their tablets.

     

    What say you?

    • Like 1

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted · Edited by bigsnake49

    The merger could always go the other way.

     

    The merger will be an all stock merger. Neither entity can afford to buy the other. As it is, right now T-Mobile has a higher corporate value at approximately $80B while Sprint has a $70B value. So it seems that unless Softbank comes up with a few billions to even up the stakes, T-Mobile or DT will be the controlling entity. I expect that at some point after the merger, the resultant company will come up with a public offering to the public to get some value out of the company.

    • Like 1

    Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

    in T-Mobile Merger/5G NR Deployment

    Posted

    This.  They need to be nationwide.  Every state.  Every mile of interstate, every city over 10,000 people, every mile of every major transportation corridor.  I am not pro merger.  But I am not fully against it.  There will be good things from it.  But for me, this is one of the most important foundational requirements.  This would be non-negotiable for me.

     

    For me it was highly disappointing that AT&T had large gaps in coverage on I-10 and I-80 and then on California Hwy 128 around Lake Berryessa.

    Official Tmobile-Sprint merger discussion thread

    in T-Mobile Merger/5G NR Deployment

    Posted

    I am certainly very happy that merger discussions are entering the serious phase and even more happy that it is an all stock deal therefore ensuring no added debt. I do believe that the combined company will have a $60B debt load which is very comfortable for a company that size. I want to discuss first of all their combined spectrum situation. Here is a list of their spectrum holdings:

     

    1. 10x10Mhz+ of 600Mhz

    2. 5x5Mhz of 700MHz

    3. 7x7 Mhz of 800MHz

    4. 30x30 MHz of PCS

    5. 20x20 of band 66

    6. 120-160 MHz of Band 41

     

    If they are not forced to divest spectrum, as you can see they have plenty of spectrum for the foreseeable future. According to may thinking they have plenty of low to mid band spectrum the site to provide reliable voice and data under LTE. Band 41 can then be targeted for 5G. If I am the FCC I will make sure that they deploy everywhere they have low band spectrum to give us 3 carriers for every square mile.  

    • Like 1

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted

    Exactly!    And it's not impeded with IBEZ issues at all the borders with the spectrum they do have. 

     

    All of the carriers on both sides on the border have interference issues and inadvertent international roaming. Sprint's IBEZ issues are mostly caused because of the stupid schedule the transition administrator came up with in which IBEZ areas came dead last in the schedule. No reason why they could not have been done in parallel. The whole rebanding was a total cluster you know what and the FCC shares a lion's share of the blame. Don't get me started!

    • Like 6

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted · Edited by bigsnake49

    I completely agree.   They do need someone with some cash and low band spectrum to invest in Capex.    You said it perfectly when you said T-Mobile did it early in LTE deployment.  They did.. it made T-Mobile a much better cellular company ...no longer the laughing joke of the industry.   I really think if Sprint would of actually completed any one network improvement programs to the Nth degree, they would be in a much better financial position.    Seems they always do "half job" and never complete any one thing they start.     The lack of 800 MHz antenna's in my area because the equipment installed never had it is a perfect example of "half-job".    They knew eventually IBEZ would be lifted and the network could be installed.     As much as Sprint wants to say they don't need or want low band, I am not buying that.   That's a save face to investors if you ask me.    They need 800 and some 600.   If we lived in grass huts, it would be a different story.    The Magic box is not and can never be the save all that some want you to believe.

     

    What made T-Mobile is the AT&T breakup fee and the $5B of debt that the parent company forgave. Oh yeah not having to support 3 networks and a bloated bureaucracy. And a network management team focused on execution.

    • Like 3

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted

    Sprint just needs to execute. Their majority owner has the funds to put all the spectrum in play and shore up the network deficiencies by 2020. Sprint doesn't "need" anyone else's money. Network investment seems to bring good returns as well. Sprint will be gradually be worth more in the future (to a potential suitor) based on the quality of the network access being purchased and customer satisfaction.

     

    So my point? I am no longer in favor of a tmo merger.

     

    And color me a bit skeptical of mega mergers... promises of customer benefits are often over stated.

     

     

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

     

    Softbank has not invested anything in Sprint besides their initial investment because of contractual obligations with the Japanese banks that financed the deal.

    I am definitely in favor of the merger just so they can be competitive as far as spreading out costs over a larger customer base. Now of course I want certain conditions on the deal.

    • Like 1

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted

    They had come out with their 5G plan a while back with multiple phases to roll out 600mhz by 2020.  This is nothing new. The roll out is limited to parts of the country and not nationwide.  

     

    There are parts of the country outside the big cities where their winnings in the 600Mhz band are not occupied by broadcasters. Those are free to develop.

    • Like 2

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted · Edited by bigsnake49

     

    Sprint's equivalent to Nextel's pump & dump or T-Mobile's uncarrier moves? Get as many subscribers as you can as fast as you can before you merge?

    What's to prevent people from getting a year's worth of free service and then move to another carrier?

    Marcelo Claure, Town Hall Meetings, New Family Share Pack Plan, Unlimited Individual Plan, Discussion Thread

    in General Topics

    Posted

    You can bet Dish is speaking to both. They need the infrastructure to deploy their spectrum and are probably trying to diversify their portfolio now that cable TV is dying.

     

    I also wouldn't rule out foreign investors.

     

    The cable TV business is in trouble—in fact, it is "failing" as a business due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming, according to a cable lobbyist group.

    "As a business, it is failing," said Matthew Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA). "It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can't give them on cable [TV]."

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/cable-tv-failing-as-a-business-cable-industry-lobbyist-says/

    So they are talking to cable cos and of course Dish. Don't be surprised if let's say a cable co or two acquire both Dish and either T-Mobile or Sprint. Or if T-Mobile and Sprint merge then don't be surprised if the cable cos acquire Dish if only for the spectrum.

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