bigsnake49

"NetAmerica says it has completed preliminary agreements with 14 companies and is in talks with around 40 more in 12 states." http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/4g-lte/sprint-adds-first-12-lte-rural-roaming-partners/d/d-id/709479?

NetAmerica, LLC, the roaming hub enabler/broker is in negotiations with 40 more carriers. This LTE roaming thing has legs.

Well, Sprint will get access to T-Mobile's LTE network and vice versa almost immediately as long as devices support it. In the end they will have to have devices that support 6 LTE bands (600MHz/700Mhz/800Mhz/1900MHz/2500MHz). Voice will be a bit trickier until VoLTE takes over. Sprint's network will gain some additional non-overlapping sites from T-Mobile. I think that they will probably keep NV as in have NV base stations host T-Mobile's frequencies and sell T_mobile's network after the two networks are integrated. I am sure that Dish might be interested.

It eliminates a competitor in the backhaul business, so prices for backhaul are expected to rise, and it also removes a customer of Sprint (TW Telecom used Sprint's Internet backbone) so it reduces revenue to Sprint.

TW telecom has quite a few metro fiber loops all over the staes. Whether they provide any backhaul to Sprint or not I am not aware.

Well first the fact that they were a customer of Sprint's Internet backbone and now they won't be and second because it will take out another supplier of backhaul out of the market.

I thought that TW Telecom was a pretty big Sprint backbone customer. Plus it takes out a competitor for metro fiber loops out. Either way, it's not good for Sprint. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25971434/level-3-acquire-tw-telecom-5-7-billion

Solinc? Do they have an LTE network yet?

I usually ignore the comments

Who is Tony Chen? Craig Moffett, now he is definitely annoying! and this whole articles is about comparing ARPU of uncarrier plans vs subsidized plans. Apples and oranges.

They get a steady stream of income...with not a lot of capex.

Sprint could also acquire Dish. Granted they will have to divest their spectrum and it is a non-growing business, but they get a steady income and they get licenses to conent which they can use to serve the OTT crowd. The option has been bandied around for a while. But to acquire Dish they will have to get around Ergen. Whoever acquires Dish will have to grossly overpay. So somebody tells me Dish will stand by itself for a little while. I foresee a partnership with Sprint with respect to using EBS for fixed broadband and or a spectrum swap. Remember that TD-LTE has to allow for the uplink so a 20MHz 3:2 TD-LTE channel is equivalent to a 12MHz FD-LTE downlink. So if Sprint can swap some EBS spectrum for Dish's 25x5Mhz spectrum adjacent to PCS-G, they will end up with a 30x10Mhz adjacent contiguous spectrum. Which is not bad at all. For me the Dish angle is the most interesting one in the Sprint-TMobile merger. I mean we can argue till kingdom come whether they should divest EBS vs PCS or EBS vs AWS. But we all know that Dish wants to play. I can't wait to see what hand they will be dealt and how they will play it.

First they have to get by the DOJ and have their merger with DirectTV approved. Which is not guaranteed by any means! The obvious buyer is Dish because they actually want a wireless play! They might even buy the T-Mobile network, therefore helping payoff some of the debt. It might even help sell the merger.

I am not advocating that they get rid of 700MHz.

Yes, if the handset supports AWS LTE

They wil not get rid of PCS if they can help it. They will get rid of EBS definitely. 700Mhz I am not so sure given Sprint's intention to roam on 700Mhz rural partners. If the spectrum screen is on total spectrum, then divesting some/all of EBS should satisfy it. If the spectrum is by band, then they might have to get rid of some of PCS. I hope not.

That's why I said I am of two minds...

The two networks will have to be operated in parallel for a little while until they are fully integrated. Both LTE networks will be available to the other network, provided that you have a newer phone. I would think that newer Sprint phones will be allowed to use WCDMA for voice going forward. WCDMA + LTE will be added to all 2g T-Mobile sites + all non-colocated Sprint sites. I am of two mind about band 26 LTE. I would rather they implement WCDMA on band26 so that all subscribers (T-Mobile + Sprint) benefit from better voice coverage.

Yes they do. A large bonfire!!!

Yep, I have been in support of the merger forever, although the two companies could have undertaken a joint venture to deploy LTE.

Sprint's free cash flow is affected by the massive capex outlay...

They will have to leave the two networks up for a while for legacy devices and M2M even if they move every voice customer off of them.

Plus Virgin Mobile!

Thanks, I remember that chart. If Sprint and T-Mobile were to merge they will own prodigious amount of spectrum of PCS spectrum. That's excluding any spectrum swaps or hosting deals they might sign with Dish. They might want to swap some PCS spectrum for 700MHz to assemble a 1<GHz portfolio or wait until 600Mhz and then swap some 700MHz spectrum for 600MHz spectrum. I don't want them to have too many sub 1GHz bands. I wonder if they can swap/reband their 900MHz SMR holdings for spectrum in the 800MHz band (take the guard+expansion band + another 1MHz into the B/ILT band. Of course that won't be necessary for the Solinc area where they can do a straight swap. According to the chart in this article (page 10): http://www.motorolasolutions.com/web/Business/Content_Groups/800_MHz/STATICFILES/Overview_and_Status_of_Rebanding_05-02-07.pdf There is full 10MHz of spectrum in the Southeast for both companies. They can sweeten the pot by giving Solinc discounts on LTE in their geographical area.

AJ, does the T-Mobile spreadsheet include the Metro PCS spectrum?