7 ms·

Sprint, SoftBank Said in Informal Deal Talks With T-Mobile

72 points by rayuela 9y ago

weston 9y ago
After reading Tim Wu's "The Master Switch" a few years ago, this can only be bad for consumers leading to less choices in the marketplace. Just one step closer to returning to the monopoly days of Ma Bell. More competition leads to better innovation and better pricing for consumers.
- nightski 9y ago
  On the other side if for some reason Sprint and T-Mobile fail then Verizon/AT&T grasp an even stronger hold on the market.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    T-Mobile has been having a fine job of bleeding Verizon and AT&T of subscribers.[1] Keep in mind, T-Mobile also just won a ton of 600mhz spectrum that will allow them to plug a great deal of the underserved rural areas without having to densify the network. First bits of that should be online at the end of the year. CapEx is where T-Mobile is putting its money, not buying satellite companies (DirecTV), launching a failed mobile television service (go90?), or buying crappy mexican carriers (mexico nextel/lusacell). If T-Mobile were to merge with someone to their benefit, it would be Dish as they have a nationwide AWS-3 license and won a good chunk of 600mhz as well. They could also start to pull the bundle shit AT&T/Verizon do. [1]http://nypost.com/2017/04/20/verizon-is-bleeding-subscribers-despite-unlimited-data-plans/ http://nypost.com/2017/04/20/verizon-is-bleeding-subscribers...
- rayiner 9y ago
  It's funny, because I took away exactly the opposite from that book. It painted a very flattering picture of Theodore Vale and his "enlightened monopoly." After all, it was Ma Bell wired up the whole country and built a network that was, for its time, state-of-the-art. "Enlightened monopolies" have historically been great for technology. Bell Labs created so much of the basic technology we depend on. Same thing for Xerox PARC (which was bankrolled by Xerox's copier patent monopoly). Maybe consumers would have paid somewhat less for phone service or copiers without those monopolies, but would the world have been better off? Conversely, competition has killed innovation in e.g. the PC market. With their razor-thin margins, Lenovo/HP/Acer/Dell/etc. have no money to innovate.
  - sbierwagen 9y ago
    What makes you think that any of the wireless networks will act as a enlightened monopoly?
    - rayiner 9y ago
      I'm more talking about "going back to Ma Bell" wouldn't be so bad, not saying that is what would happen with more consolidation.
- geppeto 9y ago
  Both of those companies tried merging with larger telco carriers like At&t and it wasnt allowed This one has a better chance
- disposition2 9y ago
  Agreed. However, and not to be political but a realist, if this is the only merger we see in the mobile providers in the next 4 years, I would consider it a win.
  - criley2 9y ago
    >Agreed. However, and not to be political but a realist, if this is the only merger we see in the mobile providers in the next 4 years, I would consider it a win There are only 4 American non-virtual mobile providers. If you expect 1 merger every 4 years, and there are only 4 providers, then you expect the entire market to re-monopolize in roughly a decade? People forget that in America, there are only 4 major mobile network builders only. I would consider it a win if we stayed at 4, or increased to 5+. Anything else is a cataclysmic loss from my perspective.
    - calvano915 9y ago
      Perhaps I'm mistaken but I think the parent was implying that the current political climate (Trump presidency) is going to encourage aggressive/expedient MnA activity, particularly in wireless/similar.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  It depends, sometimes the product involves so much infrastructure that new competition is basically impossible. Water, sewage, electric, gas, internet, wireless internet all require very heavy investments in infrastructure that make it impossible for newcomers to come in and compete. These are the things that should be classified as utilities and just operated by taxpayers, since everyone needs it and everyone benefits from it.
  - GeneralMayhem 9y ago
    If they were regulated as utilities, maybe. But under the current political administration, that's not going to happen. We can't let them have it both ways - ideally there would be both competition and consumer protection regulations, but if one is certainly gone we can't compromise on the other.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    How did four separate companies come into the market in the first place if "new competition is basically impossible?" Many businesses are extremely infrastructure and capital intensive. Should the government also run shipping carriers like FedEx? What about retailers like Amazon?
    - lotsofpulp 9y ago
      When a new market comes about, there's enough profit to go around for everyone, but once the network effects kick in, then new competitors can't come in, and if they try to, existing ones can just lower their prices and drive them out. So barring any killer secret or patented exclusive technology, I don't see how its viable for a new company to come in, and that's why you haven't seen any. When a limited public resource needs to be shared, such as wavelengths and pipes running to each home, then there must be some mechanism to allocate them fairly, and the most obvious solution to me seems to make it work like a utility, which it is. Amazon and FedEx don't seem quite comparable since they're not quite using a shared public resource, or at least not one as constrained as wavelengths and wires/pipes to your home. I actually do wonder why UPS allowed FedEx to even exist, and why Sears/Walmart allowed Amazon to come in, but they're not quite utilities (yet) as in they're not the only vendor around. I don't think it's quite as simple as keep the government out or have the government run it, but when markets don't have numerous buyers and sellers, they don't work, so you need to have something tip the scales to make it benefit society as a whole.
- droopybuns 9y ago
  I agree with the theory behind this, but if you talk to anyone who is working at Sprint, I think you'd start to realize that it is a zombie company at this point. In my opinion, Sprint is nothing more than uncollectable collateral for Softbank debt. The best possible solution for consumers is to let T-mo acquire sprint & let Tint take a swing at things.
mwexler 9y ago
Should the fact that T-Mobile is GSM while Sprint is CDMA (as far as I recall) matter? Is 5G going to make that distinction go away (ignoring frequency issues, which I thought I read was still a concern)?
- Nrsolis 9y ago
  Sprint isn't CDMA-only any longer. They're running an LTE network. CDMA as an access method is dying in the US. I'd expect it to be completely gone in a couple of years.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    >Sprint isn't CDMA-only any longer. They are for calls. voLTE coming soon! (Maybe in 2025)
- yaantc 9y ago
  LTE has made the distinction go away. LTE is the next generation for both the 3GPP camp (GSM, UMTS/HSPA) and the 3GPP2 camp (CDMA, EVDO). From LTE onward, it's 3GPP only.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    Yeah, except no. Sprint does all their calls over the CDMA network because they sucked too hard to launch voLTE (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Multimedia_Subsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Multimedia_Subsystem ) If you don't have IMS in place, it's going to be much harder to make the transition into a modern LTE network since you can't do calls over it.
    - yaantc 9y ago
      Yes, I know. I was only replying to the second question of the parent really, pointing that there is no need to wait for 5G to see a 3GPP/3GPP2 merge. The fact that Sprint has decided to keep their voice on CDMA for a while will not stop a merger like that IMHO. It will just mean more work for the merge (if it goes on). Moving away from CDMA and supporting VoLTE is bound to happen even if Sprint stays solo. Other operators have plans to sunset CDMA (e.g. end 2019 for Verizon), and at some point it doesn't make sense to stay with a now legacy standard with no traction.
panzer_wyrm 9y ago
I somewhere read that you need at least 4 big mobile operators to have real competition. Less that that and they behave like oligopoly/cartel Hiw much is US left with?
- feld 9y ago
  With Sprint gone #4 will be US Cellular which isn't exactly nationwide, but they're growing leaps and bounds.
- privong 9y ago
  Right now there are four major providers: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. There are other, smaller providers (Boost, Virgin, etc.), but I believe those generally don't have their own networks but rather lease access from the big four.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    Boost and Virgin are all MVNO's that use other networks (the big 4) Smaller regional providers are ones like US Cellular, and really tiny ones like Indigo Wireless.
    - narrowrail 9y ago
      Actually, Boost and Virgin in the US are owned by Sprint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA
- creeble 9y ago
  Depends on where, but it would mostly make for three national carriers: Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T.
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Major players: AT&T Verizon T-Mobile/Sprint Smaller players (most/all of whom piggyback on the major players' infrastructure): Metro PCS Boost Virgin Cricket
xbmcuser 9y ago
Its a tough call on 1 hand you have two carriers that have almost double the subscribers of the 3th and 4th carriers. So combining 3 and 4 would make it 3 big telcos competing for subscribers. On the other hand the users will loose a realistic choice from 4 to 3. Personally I wouldn't allow 1 or 2 to buy 3 or 4. But 3 or 4 combining I feel something people could live with.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  I agree that this is a tough call. One additional wrinkle is Comcast's impending entrance, as a Verizon reseller that will also be leveraging their own wifi network. Comcast will start out as a small player in cellular, but because they're a big company and will be leveraging a large existing wifi network they may be able to grow relatively quickly. I am generally not a huge fan of Comcast [1], but in this case I welcome their entrance to the cellular market and look forward to seeing how this shakes things up. 1: https://medium.com/@nicklum/how-my-hatred-of-comcast-drove-me-to-buy-their-stock-a17ca03a832f https://medium.com/@nicklum/how-my-hatred-of-comcast-drove-m...
- xienze 9y ago
  While I agree that going from 4 to 3 isn't a good thing, realistically Sprint has been a viable choice for some time now. Terrible coverage and pathetic data speeds.
- Aloha 9y ago
  I dont think there is enough spectrum, capital or subscribers for 4 healthy cellular carrier in the united states.
JoshTriplett 9y ago
This could be interesting for Google Fi, since they currently contract with both carriers to provide the majority of their coverage in the US.
- jldugger 9y ago
  If by interesting you mean 'well, I guess rates are going up.'
  - darkstar999 9y ago
    Would that be legal? I don't know the terminology or the regulations, but the only reason Fi exists is because the carriers are required to share their infrastructure.
    - jldugger 9y ago
      And these regulations stipulate a price?
      - darkstar999 9y ago
        I don't know, but you'd think so. Otherwise the carriers would set their price at $100/MB or something ridiculous.
rayuela 9y ago
Why was the title I used changed on this post? It was originally "Sprint Corp. has started preliminary talks to merge with T-Mobile US Inc.," which is literally the first sentence of the article....
- mockindignant 9y ago
  Because that is not the title of the article.
- maccard 9y ago
  From the guidelines [0] > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 9y ago
  When a title is misleading, the first sentence is often an excellent choice. But in this case it (i.e. the shortened version of it you used) was more misleading: it states a rumor as if it were a fact, where the original title includes "said".
  - rayuela 9y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate the response.
nradov 9y ago
This goes to show how disastrous a single bad business decision can be. When the 4G standards were still in flux, Sprint committed to WiMax and spent billions building a new network around it. Then the rest of the industry went with LTE, WiMax died, and Sprint had little money left to redo their network again. They've been basically on life support since.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  The only way this merger would work is if the entirety of Sprint's leadership gets canned and replaced with T-Mobile's. While Sprint has huge spectrum holdings to build out all sorts of network technologies, quite a bit of it is practically worthless. The really high band stuff is stopped by wet leaves. They finally have some great new equipment coming online and things are improving, but their IP network is a mess and they rely on terribad CDMA 1X fallback for calls. EDIT: I guess what I'm trying to say is this would only go through if DT receives a deal valuing TMUS more than it is. T-Mobile doesn't need Sprint and DT will continue to make money off TMUS. DT can wait to pick Sprint off when they inevitably go bankrupt. Sprint, however... they seriously had to advertise 'We're not that much worse than everyone else!'
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The industry is moving to high-band and small cells for 5G, so Sprint will be well-positioned there. But building that is going to be insanely capital-intensive, and the question is whether Sprint has the money.
    - joecool1029 9y ago
      >The industry is moving to high-band and small cells for 5G, so Sprint will be well-positioned there. But building that is going to be insanely capital-intensive, and the question is whether Sprint has the money. They don't, but Softbank could pony it up. T-Mobile is also well densified with Verizon also being comparable in this area. AT&T is the one that sucks with densification right now and would most benefit the most by a Sprint acquisition. Nobody wants the trash fire though, so it comes down to what Sprint/Softbank might be able to afford. US Cellular would be an awesome target as well but anyone in the industry knows that that would have to be pried from the Carlson family's dead fingers.
kylehotchkiss 9y ago
Ugh. Say goodbye to the wonderful world of free international roaming :( Why do good american businesses always end up merging? Feels like you can never win as a consumer even if you stick with businesses you support.
appetizer 9y ago
shadowban test
grandalf 9y ago
When the Nextel merger was allowed a few years ago, mobile phone plan prices per minute in the US increased by about 50% within six months. Suddenly the aggressively priced plans came with 600 minutes. What a joke. There is absolutely no way that the DOJ antitrust division should allow more consolidation in this space. It's far better to have reasonable, meaningful antitrust enforcement than all the perverse scenarios we end up with when we allow a small number of firms to be overly entrenched.
- Aloha 9y ago
  I'd love to see a citation for this, because it doesnt jive with my own memory. Nextel was not really competing on price.. at all. They were priced as a high tier carrier (like Verizon), they also had the smallest network footprint out of the national carriers at the time.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    Nextel was very much competing on price though. Nextel's selling point was that it allowed Nextel subscribers to call other Nextel subscribers(via "push to talk") without incurring per minute charges(this was in the days before unlimited plans.) It was the phone of construction and maintenance crews since it was basically a "walkie talkie." It wasn't a premium brand at all. >"I'd love to see a citation for this, because it doesnt jive with my own memory." I think you mean "jibe with your memory": http://the-penultimate-word.com/2012/06/23/jibe-or-jive-common-error/ http://the-penultimate-word.com/2012/06/23/jibe-or-jive-comm...
    - Aloha 9y ago
      Yes, I did use it incorrectly. But they were priced like a high-tier carrier, I was their customer at the time (and worked in the telecom industry), and while you got unlimited Direct Connect (and they also had plans for free incoming) you paid significantly more for it - but you also got better customer service too (something which Sprint badly munged in the merger). Also, pretty much every carrier in 2004-7 had free mobile to mobile minutes, so I don't think the free calling thing as big as you might make it out to be - the selling point of direct connect was that it was push to talk, and not a phone call. The other thing I'll note, having been in over 1000 cell sites for each of the carriers, the Nextel sites were 'gold plated' build outs, they were very clearly not built on a budget (almost all indoor sites (mostly in andrews shelters), most sites had a generator on site, much more extensive grounding, higher performance power systems, over provisioned power and backhaul for future expansion) - the only other carrier that comes close to this is Verizon. https://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2007/10/09/sprint-nextel-anatomy-of-a-failed-merger/ https://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2007/10/09/sprint-nextel-anatomy... https://www.scribd.com/doc/2621922/Sprint-Nextel-Merger-Analyzed https://www.scribd.com/doc/2621922/Sprint-Nextel-Merger-Anal...
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
I love my $3/month T-Mobile no-data "senior" plan with 30 minutes/texts a month + 10 cents for minute or text after that, which fits my needs exactly. As long as I can keep a similar plan, I'm happy. I think T-Mobile should be rewarded for being an innovator.

72 points by rayuela 9y ago

After reading Tim Wu's "The Master Switch" a few years ago, this can only be bad for consumers leading to less choices in the marketplace. Just one step closer to returning to the monopoly days of Ma Bell. More competition leads to better innovation and better pricing for consumers.

nightski 9y ago
On the other side if for some reason Sprint and T-Mobile fail then Verizon/AT&T grasp an even stronger hold on the market.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  T-Mobile has been having a fine job of bleeding Verizon and AT&T of subscribers.[1] Keep in mind, T-Mobile also just won a ton of 600mhz spectrum that will allow them to plug a great deal of the underserved rural areas without having to densify the network. First bits of that should be online at the end of the year. CapEx is where T-Mobile is putting its money, not buying satellite companies (DirecTV), launching a failed mobile television service (go90?), or buying crappy mexican carriers (mexico nextel/lusacell). If T-Mobile were to merge with someone to their benefit, it would be Dish as they have a nationwide AWS-3 license and won a good chunk of 600mhz as well. They could also start to pull the bundle shit AT&T/Verizon do. [1]http://nypost.com/2017/04/20/verizon-is-bleeding-subscribers-despite-unlimited-data-plans/ http://nypost.com/2017/04/20/verizon-is-bleeding-subscribers...
rayiner 9y ago
It's funny, because I took away exactly the opposite from that book. It painted a very flattering picture of Theodore Vale and his "enlightened monopoly." After all, it was Ma Bell wired up the whole country and built a network that was, for its time, state-of-the-art. "Enlightened monopolies" have historically been great for technology. Bell Labs created so much of the basic technology we depend on. Same thing for Xerox PARC (which was bankrolled by Xerox's copier patent monopoly). Maybe consumers would have paid somewhat less for phone service or copiers without those monopolies, but would the world have been better off? Conversely, competition has killed innovation in e.g. the PC market. With their razor-thin margins, Lenovo/HP/Acer/Dell/etc. have no money to innovate.
- sbierwagen 9y ago
  What makes you think that any of the wireless networks will act as a enlightened monopoly?
  - rayiner 9y ago
    I'm more talking about "going back to Ma Bell" wouldn't be so bad, not saying that is what would happen with more consolidation.
geppeto 9y ago
Both of those companies tried merging with larger telco carriers like At&t and it wasnt allowed This one has a better chance
disposition2 9y ago
Agreed. However, and not to be political but a realist, if this is the only merger we see in the mobile providers in the next 4 years, I would consider it a win.
- criley2 9y ago
  >Agreed. However, and not to be political but a realist, if this is the only merger we see in the mobile providers in the next 4 years, I would consider it a win There are only 4 American non-virtual mobile providers. If you expect 1 merger every 4 years, and there are only 4 providers, then you expect the entire market to re-monopolize in roughly a decade? People forget that in America, there are only 4 major mobile network builders only. I would consider it a win if we stayed at 4, or increased to 5+. Anything else is a cataclysmic loss from my perspective.
  - calvano915 9y ago
    Perhaps I'm mistaken but I think the parent was implying that the current political climate (Trump presidency) is going to encourage aggressive/expedient MnA activity, particularly in wireless/similar.
lotsofpulp 9y ago
It depends, sometimes the product involves so much infrastructure that new competition is basically impossible. Water, sewage, electric, gas, internet, wireless internet all require very heavy investments in infrastructure that make it impossible for newcomers to come in and compete. These are the things that should be classified as utilities and just operated by taxpayers, since everyone needs it and everyone benefits from it.
- GeneralMayhem 9y ago
  If they were regulated as utilities, maybe. But under the current political administration, that's not going to happen. We can't let them have it both ways - ideally there would be both competition and consumer protection regulations, but if one is certainly gone we can't compromise on the other.
- rayiner 9y ago
  How did four separate companies come into the market in the first place if "new competition is basically impossible?" Many businesses are extremely infrastructure and capital intensive. Should the government also run shipping carriers like FedEx? What about retailers like Amazon?
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    When a new market comes about, there's enough profit to go around for everyone, but once the network effects kick in, then new competitors can't come in, and if they try to, existing ones can just lower their prices and drive them out. So barring any killer secret or patented exclusive technology, I don't see how its viable for a new company to come in, and that's why you haven't seen any. When a limited public resource needs to be shared, such as wavelengths and pipes running to each home, then there must be some mechanism to allocate them fairly, and the most obvious solution to me seems to make it work like a utility, which it is. Amazon and FedEx don't seem quite comparable since they're not quite using a shared public resource, or at least not one as constrained as wavelengths and wires/pipes to your home. I actually do wonder why UPS allowed FedEx to even exist, and why Sears/Walmart allowed Amazon to come in, but they're not quite utilities (yet) as in they're not the only vendor around. I don't think it's quite as simple as keep the government out or have the government run it, but when markets don't have numerous buyers and sellers, they don't work, so you need to have something tip the scales to make it benefit society as a whole.
droopybuns 9y ago
I agree with the theory behind this, but if you talk to anyone who is working at Sprint, I think you'd start to realize that it is a zombie company at this point. In my opinion, Sprint is nothing more than uncollectable collateral for Softbank debt. The best possible solution for consumers is to let T-mo acquire sprint & let Tint take a swing at things.

mwexler 9y ago

Should the fact that T-Mobile is GSM while Sprint is CDMA (as far as I recall) matter? Is 5G going to make that distinction go away (ignoring frequency issues, which I thought I read was still a concern)?

Nrsolis 9y ago
Sprint isn't CDMA-only any longer. They're running an LTE network. CDMA as an access method is dying in the US. I'd expect it to be completely gone in a couple of years.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  >Sprint isn't CDMA-only any longer. They are for calls. voLTE coming soon! (Maybe in 2025)
yaantc 9y ago
LTE has made the distinction go away. LTE is the next generation for both the 3GPP camp (GSM, UMTS/HSPA) and the 3GPP2 camp (CDMA, EVDO). From LTE onward, it's 3GPP only.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  Yeah, except no. Sprint does all their calls over the CDMA network because they sucked too hard to launch voLTE (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Multimedia_Subsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Multimedia_Subsystem ) If you don't have IMS in place, it's going to be much harder to make the transition into a modern LTE network since you can't do calls over it.
  - yaantc 9y ago
    Yes, I know. I was only replying to the second question of the parent really, pointing that there is no need to wait for 5G to see a 3GPP/3GPP2 merge. The fact that Sprint has decided to keep their voice on CDMA for a while will not stop a merger like that IMHO. It will just mean more work for the merge (if it goes on). Moving away from CDMA and supporting VoLTE is bound to happen even if Sprint stays solo. Other operators have plans to sunset CDMA (e.g. end 2019 for Verizon), and at some point it doesn't make sense to stay with a now legacy standard with no traction.

panzer_wyrm 9y ago

I somewhere read that you need at least 4 big mobile operators to have real competition. Less that that and they behave like oligopoly/cartel Hiw much is US left with?

feld 9y ago
With Sprint gone #4 will be US Cellular which isn't exactly nationwide, but they're growing leaps and bounds.
privong 9y ago
Right now there are four major providers: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. There are other, smaller providers (Boost, Virgin, etc.), but I believe those generally don't have their own networks but rather lease access from the big four.
- joecool1029 9y ago
  Boost and Virgin are all MVNO's that use other networks (the big 4) Smaller regional providers are ones like US Cellular, and really tiny ones like Indigo Wireless.
  - narrowrail 9y ago
    Actually, Boost and Virgin in the US are owned by Sprint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Mobile_USA
creeble 9y ago
Depends on where, but it would mostly make for three national carriers: Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T.
alistairSH 9y ago
Major players: AT&T Verizon T-Mobile/Sprint Smaller players (most/all of whom piggyback on the major players' infrastructure): Metro PCS Boost Virgin Cricket

xbmcuser 9y ago

Its a tough call on 1 hand you have two carriers that have almost double the subscribers of the 3th and 4th carriers. So combining 3 and 4 would make it 3 big telcos competing for subscribers. On the other hand the users will loose a realistic choice from 4 to 3. Personally I wouldn't allow 1 or 2 to buy 3 or 4. But 3 or 4 combining I feel something people could live with.

gnicholas 9y ago
I agree that this is a tough call. One additional wrinkle is Comcast's impending entrance, as a Verizon reseller that will also be leveraging their own wifi network. Comcast will start out as a small player in cellular, but because they're a big company and will be leveraging a large existing wifi network they may be able to grow relatively quickly. I am generally not a huge fan of Comcast [1], but in this case I welcome their entrance to the cellular market and look forward to seeing how this shakes things up. 1: https://medium.com/@nicklum/how-my-hatred-of-comcast-drove-me-to-buy-their-stock-a17ca03a832f https://medium.com/@nicklum/how-my-hatred-of-comcast-drove-m...
xienze 9y ago
While I agree that going from 4 to 3 isn't a good thing, realistically Sprint has been a viable choice for some time now. Terrible coverage and pathetic data speeds.
Aloha 9y ago
I dont think there is enough spectrum, capital or subscribers for 4 healthy cellular carrier in the united states.

JoshTriplett 9y ago

This could be interesting for Google Fi, since they currently contract with both carriers to provide the majority of their coverage in the US.

jldugger 9y ago
If by interesting you mean 'well, I guess rates are going up.'
- darkstar999 9y ago
  Would that be legal? I don't know the terminology or the regulations, but the only reason Fi exists is because the carriers are required to share their infrastructure.
  - jldugger 9y ago
    And these regulations stipulate a price?
    - darkstar999 9y ago
      I don't know, but you'd think so. Otherwise the carriers would set their price at $100/MB or something ridiculous.

rayuela 9y ago

Why was the title I used changed on this post? It was originally "Sprint Corp. has started preliminary talks to merge with T-Mobile US Inc.," which is literally the first sentence of the article....

mockindignant 9y ago
Because that is not the title of the article.
maccard 9y ago
From the guidelines [0] > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 9y ago
When a title is misleading, the first sentence is often an excellent choice. But in this case it (i.e. the shortened version of it you used) was more misleading: it states a rumor as if it were a fact, where the original title includes "said".
- rayuela 9y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the response.

nradov 9y ago

This goes to show how disastrous a single bad business decision can be. When the 4G standards were still in flux, Sprint committed to WiMax and spent billions building a new network around it. Then the rest of the industry went with LTE, WiMax died, and Sprint had little money left to redo their network again. They've been basically on life support since.

joecool1029 9y ago
The only way this merger would work is if the entirety of Sprint's leadership gets canned and replaced with T-Mobile's. While Sprint has huge spectrum holdings to build out all sorts of network technologies, quite a bit of it is practically worthless. The really high band stuff is stopped by wet leaves. They finally have some great new equipment coming online and things are improving, but their IP network is a mess and they rely on terribad CDMA 1X fallback for calls. EDIT: I guess what I'm trying to say is this would only go through if DT receives a deal valuing TMUS more than it is. T-Mobile doesn't need Sprint and DT will continue to make money off TMUS. DT can wait to pick Sprint off when they inevitably go bankrupt. Sprint, however... they seriously had to advertise 'We're not that much worse than everyone else!'
- rayiner 9y ago
  The industry is moving to high-band and small cells for 5G, so Sprint will be well-positioned there. But building that is going to be insanely capital-intensive, and the question is whether Sprint has the money.
  - joecool1029 9y ago
    >The industry is moving to high-band and small cells for 5G, so Sprint will be well-positioned there. But building that is going to be insanely capital-intensive, and the question is whether Sprint has the money. They don't, but Softbank could pony it up. T-Mobile is also well densified with Verizon also being comparable in this area. AT&T is the one that sucks with densification right now and would most benefit the most by a Sprint acquisition. Nobody wants the trash fire though, so it comes down to what Sprint/Softbank might be able to afford. US Cellular would be an awesome target as well but anyone in the industry knows that that would have to be pried from the Carlson family's dead fingers.

kylehotchkiss 9y ago

Ugh. Say goodbye to the wonderful world of free international roaming :( Why do good american businesses always end up merging? Feels like you can never win as a consumer even if you stick with businesses you support.

appetizer 9y ago

shadowban test

grandalf 9y ago

When the Nextel merger was allowed a few years ago, mobile phone plan prices per minute in the US increased by about 50% within six months. Suddenly the aggressively priced plans came with 600 minutes. What a joke. There is absolutely no way that the DOJ antitrust division should allow more consolidation in this space. It's far better to have reasonable, meaningful antitrust enforcement than all the perverse scenarios we end up with when we allow a small number of firms to be overly entrenched.

Aloha 9y ago
I'd love to see a citation for this, because it doesnt jive with my own memory. Nextel was not really competing on price.. at all. They were priced as a high tier carrier (like Verizon), they also had the smallest network footprint out of the national carriers at the time.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Nextel was very much competing on price though. Nextel's selling point was that it allowed Nextel subscribers to call other Nextel subscribers(via "push to talk") without incurring per minute charges(this was in the days before unlimited plans.) It was the phone of construction and maintenance crews since it was basically a "walkie talkie." It wasn't a premium brand at all. >"I'd love to see a citation for this, because it doesnt jive with my own memory." I think you mean "jibe with your memory": http://the-penultimate-word.com/2012/06/23/jibe-or-jive-common-error/ http://the-penultimate-word.com/2012/06/23/jibe-or-jive-comm...
  - Aloha 9y ago
    Yes, I did use it incorrectly. But they were priced like a high-tier carrier, I was their customer at the time (and worked in the telecom industry), and while you got unlimited Direct Connect (and they also had plans for free incoming) you paid significantly more for it - but you also got better customer service too (something which Sprint badly munged in the merger). Also, pretty much every carrier in 2004-7 had free mobile to mobile minutes, so I don't think the free calling thing as big as you might make it out to be - the selling point of direct connect was that it was push to talk, and not a phone call. The other thing I'll note, having been in over 1000 cell sites for each of the carriers, the Nextel sites were 'gold plated' build outs, they were very clearly not built on a budget (almost all indoor sites (mostly in andrews shelters), most sites had a generator on site, much more extensive grounding, higher performance power systems, over provisioned power and backhaul for future expansion) - the only other carrier that comes close to this is Verizon. https://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2007/10/09/sprint-nextel-anatomy-of-a-failed-merger/ https://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2007/10/09/sprint-nextel-anatomy... https://www.scribd.com/doc/2621922/Sprint-Nextel-Merger-Analyzed https://www.scribd.com/doc/2621922/Sprint-Nextel-Merger-Anal...

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

I love my $3/month T-Mobile no-data "senior" plan with 30 minutes/texts a month + 10 cents for minute or text after that, which fits my needs exactly. As long as I can keep a similar plan, I'm happy. I think T-Mobile should be rewarded for being an innovator.