Bigger is better only when buying a box of cereal.
Mega corporations have only increased shareholder wealth.
Call up your credit card,bank, or cable company and see what lack of choice does to customer service.
It also makes it harder for new players to get into the game, which is part of monopoly capitalism's strategy.
Trump -Navarro policies on ZTE and Huawai will likely accelerate China's effort to build up homegrown chip industry so that Chinese companies can meet their needs from Chinese (and European) firms and cut out American suppliers. A short-term inconvenience for long term gain.
2
That was going to happen anyway; with technology transfers as part of doing business in China, the creation of native fabrication plants was the plan all along.
Unfortunately, considering the brutal realities and players involved in this "Brave New World", present day "FREE MARKET" dynamics are already being altered by a recognized "NON FREE TRADE ECONOMY". CCP ruled autocratic CHINA has become a major economic player that still gains unearned advantages by still cheating the present (and benefacting) world economic system.
It has shown no intention to socially contribute to world social human progress or even improved standards of living for its own people. It has shown itself that it only seeks to constantly attempt to alter and mute current world economic treaties toward FAIR TRADE, FAIR LABOR, AND FAIR ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES.
Having to consider NATIONAL SECURITY over free market benefits is something we are taking way too long to consider and render. All americans should keep in mind that China's entire economic system is completely controlled by a fascists ruling class. All Chinese Corporations are a part of the same "CCP Racket". Are we so "stupid" and apathetic that we don't know The CCP has been fighting a trade war against the US ever since the 70's.
The coming "Cold Trade War" will be long and drawn out. Americans need to form a government agency unifying all american companies in strategic economic sectors. It's the only thing we can do other than making them play by the rules, that no one else seems to be doing. Corruption is done best by the corrupt. WE HAVE ONLY BEGUN TO LOSE.
Almost all the phones and equipment on this "American" network owned by Japanese and German outfits will be made in China in part or whole.
And your point is what? The leading smartphone maker by profits and #2 by units is Apple. Apple is a US co whose suppliers makes iphones in China, with components supplied by US, Korean and Japanese cos. The factories are in Asia because of a trained and low cost labor force, and free trade.
The last time Sprint took out 20+b for Nextel’s acquisition turned out to be disastrous because of the incompatible platform. Here we go again with 2 different platforms: T-Mobile uses GSM whereas Sprint uses CDMA. Merging 2 Incompatible platforms is costly and loaded with technological as well as political obstacles from both companies which explains why Sprint suffered for the past 15 years and has yet to recover. There are limited resources for these 2 companies to overcome the existing technical platform issue and it is far-fetched to think there is any energy left for the looming 5G conversion. Even the Wall Street has serious reservation about the synergy claim by tanking both these companies' stock.
5
Pitch Behind T-Mobile-Sprint Merger: Keep Up With China in 5G
[ What nonsense, this is just a game being played to clear the way for the merger. This merger has nothing to do with China or India or any other country, and the merger should be considered only on the nature of competition in this country. ]
4
Quite frankly, it just seems that SoftBank made a lousy investment in Sprint and they only way to make it work is to gain market share and hence pricing power.
The idea that T-Mobile and Sprint merger would be beneficial to the consumer, even with considering the Chinese 5G threat is complete nonsense.
Why?
First of all, it reduces the amount of competition among cell phone companies. This results in fewer options for consumers and higher prices.
Over the years, after Sprint bought Virgin mobile, the plans such as 10 cents a minute prepaid went away. Recently Virgin adapted an all iPhone platform and will stop selling Android phones to it's customers. I.e. no more cheap phones only outrageously priced iPhones.
Second, the reality is that Sprint and T-mobile are playing on current technology fears so that they get the public behind them when they face regulators. I was wondering if 5G is so important how much $$ did the NSF (National Science Foundation) or the Department of Defense allocate for research grants? How much did Sprint spend on 5G research? etc etc etc.
1
The biggest issue is that there are no US-based 5G hardware manufacturers anymore. Sprint had a hand in turning off Motorola’s WiMax Network (Clearawire), and also decommissioning Lucent’s (now Nokia) CDMA network.
T-Mobile, has always been pro-European in its hardware selection of SWEDEN-based Ericsson and Finland-based Nokia.
It’s difficult to see how T-Mobile can make a claim to US-based core network technologies when everything is manufactured in China and India anyway. The Chief Radio Engineer at T-Mobile is from Finland, and Neville Ray is From The UK. Perhaps the net effect T-Mobile of US Superiority for 5G technology is based on the hiring of a few managers to see the Nokia hardware installed properly..?
Huawei is indeed the world’s #1 network gear manufacturer because in China they have billions of people and for decades had to invest in R&D for high-capacity solutions. But Huawei’s R&D and technology often becomes a part of Europeans LTE standards anyway.
I recall when Huawei hired all the R&D staff from cisco in the 2000s to develop SOLAR 3.0 because China needed higher capacity fiber, but Cisco didn’t want to interrupt their sales cycle. Now that’s technology is apart of recent Industry specifications and standards, benefitting all except for Cisco. Cisco also ended up changing CEOs as a result of that lost opportunity.
5
5G technology is subject to the the standards being written by the 3GPP. If you look at the 3GPP Organizational Partners:
http://www.3gpp.org/about-3gpp/partners
Those are largely foreign entities. Wireless technology has to be standardized on a global basis. India and China are closing in on 1 billion subscribers, each. The US has something like 250M subscribers. Europe has 772 M (in 2016).
Since the 2008 financial crash, employment and sales revenue for US network equipment companies has declined 15%. The problem is bigger than anything this merger will address.