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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

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.
Aloha 9y ago
As someone with a great deal of first hand familiarity with the Sprint network - in the western region, the last network upgrade was a forklift upgrade - out went the ALU (alcatel-lucent) hardware, and in went brand new shiny Samsung hardware, with brand new shiny tower top radios, and brand new shiny antennas, all connected over a fiber backhaul. In my market, even the 1x network is hugely improved (as well as EV-DO) - I also take issue with you using 1x fallback to imply that on the sprint network there is another way to make phone calls other than 1x - there is no VoLTE footprint on the sprint network.

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.

Aloha 9y ago

As someone with a great deal of first hand familiarity with the Sprint network - in the western region, the last network upgrade was a forklift upgrade - out went the ALU (alcatel-lucent) hardware, and in went brand new shiny Samsung hardware, with brand new shiny tower top radios, and brand new shiny antennas, all connected over a fiber backhaul. In my market, even the 1x network is hugely improved (as well as EV-DO) - I also take issue with you using 1x fallback to imply that on the sprint network there is another way to make phone calls other than 1x - there is no VoLTE footprint on the sprint network.