9 ms·

FCC approves T-Mobile and Sprint merger

114 points by tancik 7y ago

Teknoman117 7y ago
Of course they did.
- bnjms 7y ago
  I know what you mean but I'm not certain Spring was viable long term against Verizon and Sprint. Hopefully this won't be the end of T-Mobile being somewhat more pro consumer.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    I was told by a T-Mobile person that they are not closing the T-Mobile stores and the cuts will come from the Sprint side. Hoping that's true since Sprint is absolutely horrific.
    - takeda 7y ago
      It still was an alternative to these 3.
ars 7y ago
Sprint was on the verge of going out of business, they basically had no choice but to approve the merger, sprint's assets would have been sold either way.
nradov 7y ago
I think this is generally a good thing for consumers. One strong company with a solid network can provide more effective competition against Verizon and AT&T than two weak companies with crappy networks can separately.
- shmerl 7y ago
  What stops those two from building up their networks? T-Mobile is profitable at least.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    Revenue per subscriber, neither can get enough economy of scale alone to really expand to compete effectively with the other two. The amount of spectrum that Tmo/Sprint will hold merged exceeds either Verizon or AT&T at last check.
  - aylmao 7y ago
    Well, one thing is being profitable, and the other is how much money you can spend "right now". AT&T is posted Q3 revenues of 44.6 billion [1], and T-Mobile of 11.1 billion [2]; that's a significant margin. Building network infrastructure is not cheap and the move to 5G will be even more expensive, but users move to the network that is better for them _right now_. [1]: https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-reports/quarterly-earnings/2019/3q-2019/3Q19%20Highlights.pdf https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-r... [2]: https://s22.q4cdn.com/194431217/files/doc_financials/2019/q3/TMUS-09_30_2019-Investor-Factbook.pdf https://s22.q4cdn.com/194431217/files/doc_financials/2019/q3...
- Aloha 7y ago
  I'd broadly agree with you, they're for sure stronger together than apart
- takeda 7y ago
  No it's not, now T-Mobile will have as much leverage as Verizon and AT&T and will become horrible like them. T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the despised companies. The companies don't need to merge to become better for customers. They could for example have agreements and share their towers to improve each other's coverage.
  - merb 7y ago
    > T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the despised companies. that is bullshit
elamje 7y ago
I would love to see a startup completely change the game in this space. Google is the most techy company that I’ve seen have an actual chance at carving away some customers from the big carriers with Fi. Of course, they are piggy backing on Sprint/T-Mobile infra, but they have a compelling pitch.
- spectramax 7y ago
  It’s the infrastructure cost. I use Ting in the US which uses brokered network infrastructure similar to Google Fi.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    I also use Ting! Never met another person that used it. Hands down the best service plan for people that don't use much data/text/minutes. I recently switched my wife to Mint Mobile because she uses a lot of data, and so far that has been a good experience.
    - FullyFunctional 7y ago
      Having been with all the usual providers I feel T-mobile sucks the least, but on a wim I got a Ting SIM card for a spare phone and I ended up using it a lot. I love the transparency and have no complaints so far.
    - jawns 7y ago
      I'm the reverse. I use Mint and my wife uses Ting. Having previously been with Ting, I've cut my monthly bills in half, from ~$30 to ~$15, with 3GB of data a month, which is more than enough for me. Granted, with Mint you have to prepay for a year to get that rate. But it's on the T-Mobile network, and I can't complain about the coverage!
  - Aloha 7y ago
    its on the order of 375m to build out a market with 500 cell sites, assuming you have no greenfield sites. Thats not a huge number, not for google.
rubyn00bie 7y ago
I really hope Starlink starts a boom in low orbit, low ping, internet providers... Because that's the only way we're going to see any competition emerge in wireless telecommunications. This merger is unlikely to do anyone good, IMHO, and is very likely going to make prices rise in a few years once the FTC isn't watching them. Look at the very expected level of bullshit AT&T has done with Dish Network's pricing... If the government wanted competition they'd figure out a way to make starting a new wireless carrier cheap by providing network, power, and physical locations for startups. Reducing the barrier of entry enables more competition; consolidating spectrum into even fewer hands, more wealthy hands, does not.
- Aloha 7y ago
  Its not hard to get any of those things - heck, for about 150k you can build a site greenfield with nothing there - but consider that Crown Castle, American Tower and a couple other much smaller ones, own 95% of tower sites out there - its not as if T-Mobile is renting from Verizon, most of the big carriers dont own their own sites anymore, and have not owned them for decades. The real thing we're short of is spectrum, not cell sites. I'm skeptical that satellite will fix any of this, they have the same spectrum shortage issues too, with infrastructure that costs gobs more.
- kunai 7y ago
  This is a perfect example of how Silicon Valley mentality and technocratic solutions often overcomplicate, to a ridiculous degree, the mostly solved challenge of how to get obtainable and affordable high-speed internet in the United States. It's called municipal broadband.[1] Not everything has to be disrupted the way that SF startup cats want to. There is legitimately no reason you couldn't de-privatize spectrum and return control to local stakeholders in the same manner. [1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadbandwhy-doesnt-every-city https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadb...
  - rhino369 7y ago
    My municipality cannot even deliver water without making our kids mentally disabled from lead poisoning. Not sure I want them with a monopoly on telecoms too.
pc2g4d 7y ago
Say it ain't so :-( T-Mobile doesn't need to merge its DNA with that of Sprint.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Seeing how well T-mobile managed the MetroPCS merger compared to the Nextel Sprint merger, I have high hopes. Within a year or so, T-mobile moved all of Metro’s customers to its network and took advantage of MetroPCS’s bandwidth. Sprint kept Nextel’s network limping along for years.
mxschumacher 7y ago
Good timing for Softbank, they are bleeding billions with their investments in Uber, Slack and WeWork
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
acollins1331 7y ago
Both these companies are jokes. I had 45 prepaid 4g a month with Sprint and switched to the a prepaid program with Verizon that costs the same amount but gives me 16gb a month, and I actually have service on the islands.
rayiner 7y ago
Quick question. Why do people continue to use Verizon or AT&T when Sprint or T-Mobile are so much cheaper? It looks like I could cut my Verizon bill in half by switching to T Mo.
- AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
  Coverage.
- gormandizer 7y ago
  Personally I typically don't buy anything based solely on price. For me I could save ~$3/mo on tmo, however after a month with tmo I found VZ coverage is well worth $3 more.
- paulie_a 7y ago
  T-Mobile might be cheaper but their coverage sucks in Wisconsin. In my previous experience with them, if you were not in Milwaukee or on the freeway you are out of luck.maybe it has improved but I won't bother with them.
- dylz 7y ago
  I get sub-2 to 3 Mbps speeds on a postpaid business-type T-Mobile plan due to congestion/oversubscription. This is not in a rural wasteland, but in a major tech urban city. Verizon and AT&T do just as badly, but not nearly as much (~8Mbps). Again, congestion, not because there are no towers nearby. I am on business postpaid higher tier plans, and should have tower priority according to them. Sprint coverage disappears completely a few minutes after exiting major cities. AT&T has a disgusting transparent proxy that breaks SSL half the time (if you try to negotiate purely-modern ciphers, your SSL connects typically fail) and modifies random files/headers in transit if plaintext. They do not/will not remove it. Plaintext HTTP exits through one IP (shared by an insane amount of people, seemingly), and all other traffic that it can't tamper with or doesn't know how to tamper with exits via another IP. This breaks some things. Incidentally, I am typing this on a hotspot, and as my bus enters downtown CBD loading web pages (including HN, the lightest page of them all) ha started to take 10-30 seconds.
thedanbob 7y ago
I hope this doesn't kill / raise prices for the MVNOs that run on the Sprint network, specifically Tello. I pay $17 a month total for my and my wife's phones and I would hate to lose that.
smkellat 7y ago
And living in my rural area, Sprint and TMO are both weak performers. Consolidating may make for an okay third carrier.

114 points by tancik 7y ago

Teknoman117 7y ago

Of course they did.

bnjms 7y ago
I know what you mean but I'm not certain Spring was viable long term against Verizon and Sprint. Hopefully this won't be the end of T-Mobile being somewhat more pro consumer.
- protomyth 7y ago
  I was told by a T-Mobile person that they are not closing the T-Mobile stores and the cuts will come from the Sprint side. Hoping that's true since Sprint is absolutely horrific.
  - takeda 7y ago
    It still was an alternative to these 3.

ars 7y ago

Sprint was on the verge of going out of business, they basically had no choice but to approve the merger, sprint's assets would have been sold either way.

nradov 7y ago

I think this is generally a good thing for consumers. One strong company with a solid network can provide more effective competition against Verizon and AT&T than two weak companies with crappy networks can separately.

shmerl 7y ago
What stops those two from building up their networks? T-Mobile is profitable at least.
- Aloha 7y ago
  Revenue per subscriber, neither can get enough economy of scale alone to really expand to compete effectively with the other two. The amount of spectrum that Tmo/Sprint will hold merged exceeds either Verizon or AT&T at last check.
- aylmao 7y ago
  Well, one thing is being profitable, and the other is how much money you can spend "right now". AT&T is posted Q3 revenues of 44.6 billion [1], and T-Mobile of 11.1 billion [2]; that's a significant margin. Building network infrastructure is not cheap and the move to 5G will be even more expensive, but users move to the network that is better for them _right now_. [1]: https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-reports/quarterly-earnings/2019/3q-2019/3Q19%20Highlights.pdf https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-r... [2]: https://s22.q4cdn.com/194431217/files/doc_financials/2019/q3/TMUS-09_30_2019-Investor-Factbook.pdf https://s22.q4cdn.com/194431217/files/doc_financials/2019/q3...
Aloha 7y ago
I'd broadly agree with you, they're for sure stronger together than apart
takeda 7y ago
No it's not, now T-Mobile will have as much leverage as Verizon and AT&T and will become horrible like them. T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the despised companies. The companies don't need to merge to become better for customers. They could for example have agreements and share their towers to improve each other's coverage.
- merb 7y ago
  > T-Mobile so far is nice here, but for example in Germany is one of the despised companies. that is bullshit

elamje 7y ago

I would love to see a startup completely change the game in this space. Google is the most techy company that I’ve seen have an actual chance at carving away some customers from the big carriers with Fi. Of course, they are piggy backing on Sprint/T-Mobile infra, but they have a compelling pitch.

spectramax 7y ago
It’s the infrastructure cost. I use Ting in the US which uses brokered network infrastructure similar to Google Fi.
- freedomben 7y ago
  I also use Ting! Never met another person that used it. Hands down the best service plan for people that don't use much data/text/minutes. I recently switched my wife to Mint Mobile because she uses a lot of data, and so far that has been a good experience.
  - FullyFunctional 7y ago
    Having been with all the usual providers I feel T-mobile sucks the least, but on a wim I got a Ting SIM card for a spare phone and I ended up using it a lot. I love the transparency and have no complaints so far.
  - jawns 7y ago
    I'm the reverse. I use Mint and my wife uses Ting. Having previously been with Ting, I've cut my monthly bills in half, from ~$30 to ~$15, with 3GB of data a month, which is more than enough for me. Granted, with Mint you have to prepay for a year to get that rate. But it's on the T-Mobile network, and I can't complain about the coverage!
- Aloha 7y ago
  its on the order of 375m to build out a market with 500 cell sites, assuming you have no greenfield sites. Thats not a huge number, not for google.

rubyn00bie 7y ago

I really hope Starlink starts a boom in low orbit, low ping, internet providers... Because that's the only way we're going to see any competition emerge in wireless telecommunications. This merger is unlikely to do anyone good, IMHO, and is very likely going to make prices rise in a few years once the FTC isn't watching them. Look at the very expected level of bullshit AT&T has done with Dish Network's pricing... If the government wanted competition they'd figure out a way to make starting a new wireless carrier cheap by providing network, power, and physical locations for startups. Reducing the barrier of entry enables more competition; consolidating spectrum into even fewer hands, more wealthy hands, does not.

Aloha 7y ago
Its not hard to get any of those things - heck, for about 150k you can build a site greenfield with nothing there - but consider that Crown Castle, American Tower and a couple other much smaller ones, own 95% of tower sites out there - its not as if T-Mobile is renting from Verizon, most of the big carriers dont own their own sites anymore, and have not owned them for decades. The real thing we're short of is spectrum, not cell sites. I'm skeptical that satellite will fix any of this, they have the same spectrum shortage issues too, with infrastructure that costs gobs more.
kunai 7y ago
This is a perfect example of how Silicon Valley mentality and technocratic solutions often overcomplicate, to a ridiculous degree, the mostly solved challenge of how to get obtainable and affordable high-speed internet in the United States. It's called municipal broadband.[1] Not everything has to be disrupted the way that SF startup cats want to. There is legitimately no reason you couldn't de-privatize spectrum and return control to local stakeholders in the same manner. [1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadbandwhy-doesnt-every-city https://www.thedailybeast.com/chattanooga-has-its-own-broadb...
- rhino369 7y ago
  My municipality cannot even deliver water without making our kids mentally disabled from lead poisoning. Not sure I want them with a monopoly on telecoms too.

pc2g4d 7y ago

Say it ain't so :-( T-Mobile doesn't need to merge its DNA with that of Sprint.

scarface74 7y ago
Seeing how well T-mobile managed the MetroPCS merger compared to the Nextel Sprint merger, I have high hopes. Within a year or so, T-mobile moved all of Metro’s customers to its network and took advantage of MetroPCS’s bandwidth. Sprint kept Nextel’s network limping along for years.

mxschumacher 7y ago

Good timing for Softbank, they are bleeding billions with their investments in Uber, Slack and WeWork

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

acollins1331 7y ago

Both these companies are jokes. I had 45 prepaid 4g a month with Sprint and switched to the a prepaid program with Verizon that costs the same amount but gives me 16gb a month, and I actually have service on the islands.

rayiner 7y ago

Quick question. Why do people continue to use Verizon or AT&T when Sprint or T-Mobile are so much cheaper? It looks like I could cut my Verizon bill in half by switching to T Mo.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
Coverage.
gormandizer 7y ago
Personally I typically don't buy anything based solely on price. For me I could save ~$3/mo on tmo, however after a month with tmo I found VZ coverage is well worth $3 more.
paulie_a 7y ago
T-Mobile might be cheaper but their coverage sucks in Wisconsin. In my previous experience with them, if you were not in Milwaukee or on the freeway you are out of luck.maybe it has improved but I won't bother with them.
dylz 7y ago
I get sub-2 to 3 Mbps speeds on a postpaid business-type T-Mobile plan due to congestion/oversubscription. This is not in a rural wasteland, but in a major tech urban city. Verizon and AT&T do just as badly, but not nearly as much (~8Mbps). Again, congestion, not because there are no towers nearby. I am on business postpaid higher tier plans, and should have tower priority according to them. Sprint coverage disappears completely a few minutes after exiting major cities. AT&T has a disgusting transparent proxy that breaks SSL half the time (if you try to negotiate purely-modern ciphers, your SSL connects typically fail) and modifies random files/headers in transit if plaintext. They do not/will not remove it. Plaintext HTTP exits through one IP (shared by an insane amount of people, seemingly), and all other traffic that it can't tamper with or doesn't know how to tamper with exits via another IP. This breaks some things. Incidentally, I am typing this on a hotspot, and as my bus enters downtown CBD loading web pages (including HN, the lightest page of them all) ha started to take 10-30 seconds.

thedanbob 7y ago

I hope this doesn't kill / raise prices for the MVNOs that run on the Sprint network, specifically Tello. I pay $17 a month total for my and my wife's phones and I would hate to lose that.

smkellat 7y ago

And living in my rural area, Sprint and TMO are both weak performers. Consolidating may make for an okay third carrier.