Sprint and T-Mobile to Merge, in Bid to Remake Wireless Market

Trump fcc is still fighting ATT and their promised puchase/merger. Over nothing! Sprint and tmobile are not viable on their own and, no, the government must not subsidize. Ever For those deriding capitalism, governments are much worse at running anything short of a union scam.

When you consolidate an industry, prices go up every time.

Merger 101: there will be layoffs, offices will be closed, to avoid duplication. I currently pay fees here in CA, both on my landline and cell phone, to susidize rural/low-income phone users. There will be no build-out of jobs into the rural areas, unless the states or federal governments pay for it. It is terrible for consumers, but since the GOP/TRUMP thugs are in charge will probably sail through unless Trump and his cronies are jailed.

Everyone wants competition, including me. What consumers need is strong competition to the two market leaders, AT&T and Verizon. When 5G is rolled out in the next few years, all of the companies will need another round of massive infrastructure spending to upgrade their current towers and add the additional towers required due to 5Gs shorter range. Sprint is highly leveraged already, so it's difficult to see them being able to afford the infrastructure to compete in the 5G space with AT&T and Verizon. Of course it's fair to wonder if the proposed new T-Mobile will maintain its current position as a market disrupter once it has subscriber levels that compete with AT&T and Verizon. However, it's even harder to see Sprint be truly competitive given their current financial situation. In the end I think combining forces will be best for consumers to create another truly competitive company in the mobile market.

I can already visualize the remake of There Will Be Blood, aptly titled You Will Pay More.

There are three national carriers in Canada and in every province where there is another major regional carrier, plan prices are often 30-50% less. If 5G is as expensive as has been suggested and will need a street-level cabinet the size of a fridge every 500 feet, there is certainly going to be some cooperation in rolling that out.

It was not all that long ago that all the Ma Bell & Her Baby Bells were broken up. Seems I recollect something about monopolizing the market. But like almost everything regulatory, I am sure the fools in D.C. are all too happy to allow this. After all, They don’t pay their phone bills.

The wireless frontier has changed a lot since Ameritech launched in Chicago, MCI birthed McCaw Cellular, and Sprint was created by the former GTE. There is a chance, a strong chance, this deal will be blocked and yet I have faith in Mr. Legere, but I have less faith in the unknown so not so fast on those party favors - just - yet. If a proposal can be shown to benefit consumer's by not only benefiting consumers but by advancing the governments goal of rapid 5G deployment this sucker might have a chance.

It is gauche to describe Mr. Legere as colorful. He is colorfully spoken. Or a colorful character. One could say "as he colorfully put it".

Seems that this merger is necessitated because technology demands larger investments that smaller companies can't provide. That's if we maintain that the "free market" is the one who should be making the investment. But when this is a matter of national security, perhaps the government should be the one responsible for making sure we are not beholden to the private sector. Let the gov't provide the network the same as they provide infrastructure and a military.

If the "Trump-appointed antitrust chief at the Justice Department" is as competent and dedicated a public servant as Trump's other appointments, I'm sure there will be a fair balancing of the pros and cons of such a merger for the companies involved and the public. Just kidding.

Sure, why not? After all, now that we've seen the mergers of oil companies, banks and airlines that have all lead to lower prices, more efficiency and better wages and benefits for employees we have to finally see that bigger and more powerful companies and monopolies is always in our and country's best interests!

What F.C.C.? Corporations can do whatever they want these days. The so-called F.C.C. is responsible for the rise of right-wing talk radio and does not support net neutrality, etc. Why would they care to interfere with this merger?

There's no way this merger should be permitted! There are lots of reasons for anti-trust laws that stand as a bulwark against the over-concentration of power in the market, but surely the most compelling one is that diversity encourages long-term stability. The MBA mantra that efficiency demands ever more concentration is a total fiction based on discounting (or totally ignoring) the true costs. So, once our child President has departed for his rest home, let's re-invigorate our anti-trust laws, ban all monopolies, and regulate those oligopolies so that they serve the people, instead of vice versa. We, the People, have this power, and we should use it!

Anybody know how this merger affects customers that use Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile? Both carriers utilize the Sprint network and have offered no-contract deals and low cost plans. Hopefully they will continue.

I have been a T-Mobile customer for more than 5 years. Why? Competition drove their prices down and got rid of that ugly 2-year contract AT&T and its predecessors in paying for cellular service by the minute (I can remember monthly bills well north of $500+ dollars, just to keep in touch while a I was a customer of the AT&T forefathers---it was ugly. Take it or leave it; there was NO competition. Then T-Mobile comes along with some innovation (including liberal upgrade programs). They are not perfect, but they ARE consumer oriented. So long as we can quote both CEO's on their assertions PRICES WILL REMAIN LOW and SERVICE will improve, I say gov't stay out. Otherwise, boys, you will not only lose my support, you will quickly lose my brand loyalty. YOU decide! Profits or customer loyalty.

The combined company may have 100 M subscribers but it also has two very different network "stacks". The last time Sprint did this, with Nextel, the result was regarded n the industry as a massive failure. On top of the technology merger problems, Sprint jumped into next generation high speed wireless broadband with WiMax, a different technology than the industry eventually adopted for 4G cellular data. The move to 5G is going to be difficult for all wireless companies. It's more or less a "forklift upgrade". This deal does give T-Mobile and Sprint a larger common population of cell tower locations, but it also creates a problem with two legacy cellular technologies to support until they are phased out, and a battle over which RAN (radio access network) protocols the merged company will adopt. 5G technology is shaping up to require 1,000's more cell sites (with a shorter range) and that requires huge investments. Sprint/T-Mobile need to merge to provide this, but they have to jettison their disparate legacy systems with little margin for errors.

It appears the merger may prevent this becoming a two-horse race, if 5G is that critical and costly. Better to have three competitors with relative parity.

In general, these mergers never benefit the consumer or the country. However, in this case, it is a choice between having 2 strong competitors and 2 weak competitors, vs . having 3 strong ones. The 2 weak competitors can't hold on forever.

It's much easier to 'fix' the market when there are only 3 players.