bigsnake49

Newer Sprint phones utilize PCS+SMR voice and AWS+PCS G+2.5GHz+SMR LTE+700MHz. Completely new T-Mobile phones will utilize PCS WCDMA+SMR CDMA for voice and AWS+SMR LTE+700Mhz+2.5GHz LTE. The divestment will happen from EBS to Dish. Not from PCS and not from AWS. There will be other conditions on buildout of 700MHz and SMR throughout the country even in places that make little economic sense. Plus hosting of Dish's spectrum at commercially reasonable rates. Dish will be the big winner out of this.

It will be nothing like nextel Sprint. Both networks are running LTE. That's where the integration will happen.

Who says that they have to move them into CDMA? They can contninue using HSPA+.

I don't think it will slow advancements on either of the networks. By the time it closes both networks, will be substantially complete.

Only because they think that there is an increased possibility that Sprint will acquire them.

20%EBITDA. How long do you think that shareholders or parent companies would put up with that? Yeah the two could survive on that, but could never thrive. You need 35-40% at least to thrive and to pay off the kind of debt load that Sprint has. That's why Sprint should have acquired T-Mobile before the two began their LTE deployment. The two could have shared the network buildout costs.

I don't know that it will be Sprint borrowing the money or Softbank. If Softbank, they can afford it since they will be getting a lot of money from their Alibaba holdings. I am more concerned with a breakup fee.

I am totally for this merger because of the two reasons given above: It is extremely expensive to have/deploy/upgrade a nationwide network and the big two suck so much of the profit out of the industry that it leaves the other two scrambling for scraps. I like the fact that T-Mobile has little debt. There will be some divestiture/swapping of spectrum, possibly to Dish (possibly EBS) and then hosting of Dish's fixed network. The big holdup will not be how much spectrum the new company will own but whether it will bid in the AWS-3 auction. For those of you that think that the merger will have any effect on the deployment of NV 2.0, don't fret. NV 1.0 will be substantially complete this summer and by the time this merger closes, NV 2.0 will be well on it's way. And do we really care which frequency band is providing prodigious bandwidth? All we care about is that it is prodigious and it it everywhere we need it. As far as the leadership going forward, I am afraid that it will be the T-Mobile team. They have shown that they can execute a plan a lot better than Sprint's team or at least give the impression that they do execute faster.

You mean 8x8? All three vendors will deploy them for Sprint in the 2.5GHz band

And I would like to see all the carriers, not just Sprint, to rationalize the data offerings with respect to tablets/laptops. If I buy 10GB/mo it should not matter how it's split among all the devices. It should be, let's say, $120 for the base 10GB plan and then $10/device no matter what device.

I fully agree with you. They need to rationalize their data plans so the hogs can pay their fair share and the low/medium users can get their plan prices reduced.

I still don't know what they're doing with the 900MHz spectrum. I know the plan is to form a 3MHz LTE band in that spectrum, but do they really want another little sliver in yet another band? Can they make a deal to move Solinc+others to 900Mhz and have full use of the 7MHz spectrum throughout the country minus IBEZ? Or swap their holdings in the 900Mhz band for 800Mhz spectrum and reband to give themselves 10Mhz in the SMR band? I know it will take a while to do that, but the 900Mhz band will also take a long time to implement. Or even sell their holding in the 900MHz band?

I still want to see what they do with Dish and fixed wireless. If they abandon their pursuit of T-Mobile, I would like for them to make a deal with Dish. For me, a swap of Block H+adjacent Dish spectrum for some EBS spectrum (to be used for fixed/nomadic broadband) would be very beneficial. Plus some money for hosting said fixed broadband

If Sprint's network is up to par in your area and the areas you travel, then yes. You will see that when people hold on to their handsets for a lot longer since they have to pay full price. What we might see is that you might get a bundle price from the handset makers. Thanks Marioc!!! Let us know any interesting tidbits... One good thing about the quarter: Sprint said its wireless adjusted EBITDA margin clocked in at 25.3 percent in the quarter, up from 19.2 percent in the same quarter a year ago. Stil nowhere close where it needs to be, in the 35-39% range.

I am paying $186 with tax for 4 lines, all unsubsidized, for 10GB/month. I will switch those lines to Sprint when their networks is up to par.

Now you know why some of us were pushing for Sprint to buy T-Mobile....

AT&T has already lowered their prices...

It's no secret what Sprint has to do. Finish 1900Mhz and 800Mhz and follow up with Spark where the other two deployments are finished. At the same time implement their alliance with the rural carriers.

They call it fronthaul, connecting the cloud powered base station with the pCell. It can be microwave or fiber.

That's why you test it. And test it some more. And when you're done testing, you test it again!

That will be a great partnership, since Dish has or will get the media rights for online TV. As mentioned above, they might or might not need Sprint and their network for this. I would think that Dish might also be a player in the AWS-3 auction next year, particularly for the unpaired spectrum. At some point or another, a Dish/Sprint merger might make a hell of a lot of sense, particularly if a T-Mobile/Sprint merger gets rejected.

In 2015? Wow!

Sprint needs to shutdown WiMax and fast. They need to reclaim the 3x10MHz spectrum used for Wimax for mobile LTE. This is where Clearwire's decision to use use 3x10Mhz per site is coming back to haunt them. They also need to get going on the fixed LTE deployment with Dish. It is part of the whole story being told to FCC and DOJ to get the T-Mobile merger approved. The big problem with the merger is not the elimination of competition, it is the decrease in demand for spectrum in the upcoming auction, money that is supposed to fund the nationwide public safety network. Let's face it, if the merger goes through, T-Mobile/Sprint will not bid for spectrum in the upcoming AWS-3 auction. They will bid big in the 600Mhz auction.

Sprint will participate in the 600MHz auction.

It's about time....! Common Apple! Come to think of it, Apple should just purchase Level-3 for cash. The become an MVNO of all 4 networks.