Sprint to aquire Tmo? (No, ATT did)

[MissJennell]

Sprint in talks to acquire T-Mobile USA, report claims | BGR

 

[dan330]

this has been rumored many times...

i dont know if this is good or bad... so many different issues to be address..

one is:
if sprint does this.. then they go from #3 carrier of 4 ... to last of 3.
just a spin in marketing.. but you know what I am saying.

 

[pastafarian]

I guess combining the two could make for a more powerful company, but man is it going to be complicated combining completely different networks. It's pretty well accepted that Sprints takeover of Nextel was not successful. I guess they could be run as two separate entities for a while till a common base technology (LTE?) is in place and capable of taking up the load of both? I'm kind of surprised that at&t isn't involved, Tmo would be a better fit and it would seem that at&t would have significantly deeper pockets. Though I'm on Sprint now, I would rather see Tmo stay independent.

 

[SoFLO]

CDMA, GSM, HSPA+, WiMAX...oh boy. I agree with pastafarian, if the merger happens the companies should be separate until an LTE network is ready for them both to fit under the umbrella...then you can call them T-Sprint, SprinT-Mobile, w/e.

This is like trying to fit a block into a cylinder.

 

[Knewz]

from the info i gathered sprint is buying tmo american service, not the whole company. kinda like vzw and alltel thing. Tmo in europe is huge and i dont think sprints wallet is big enough to purchase that big of a market

 

[MissJennell]

I guess combining the two could make for a more powerful company, but man is it going to be complicated combining completely different networks. It's pretty well accepted that Sprints takeover of Nextel was not successful. I guess they could be run as two separate entities for a while till a common base technology (LTE?) is in place and capable of taking up the load of both? I'm kind of surprised that at&t isn't involved, Tmo would be a better fit and it would seem that at&t would have significantly deeper pockets. Though I'm on Sprint now, I would rather see Tmo stay independent.

CDMA, GSM, HSPA+, WiMAX...oh boy. I agree with pastafarian, if the merger happens the companies should be separate until an LTE network is ready for them both to fit under the umbrella...then you can call them T-Sprint, SprinT-Mobile, w/e.

This is like trying to fit a block into a cylinder.

I agree in thinking that it would stay seperate until they could put it together with LTE.

from the info i gathered sprint is buying tmo american service, not the whole company. kinda like vzw and alltel thing. Tmo in europe is huge and i dont think sprints wallet is big enough to purchase that big of a market

All they have to do is purchase it in the United States and that would effect a lot of people on these forums. Especially the people who switch from Sprint to Tmo because of all the recent going ons.

 

[Whiskeypawz]

Interesting that this comes up again. I had heard a long time ago it was going to be the other way around, T-Mo was interested in buying Sprint. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[TheEngineer]

No way. Sprint must have learned its lesson from the Nextel fiasco.

**edit**
"Should Sprint and Deutsche Telekom eventually come to terms, the deal would reportedly give Deutsche Telekom a sizable stake in Sprint Nextel Corp. following the merger — up to 50%."

Sounds like a stock swap. May be entirely possible. Hesse has been grooming Sprint to be acquired or merged. No way Sprint can go head-to-head with the current competitive nature of the industry as well as Verizon and AT&T's resources. Sprint needs subscribers to offset its sizable fixed costs.

 

[viber]

It would be interesting to see Sprint offer a GSM and CDMA line under one banner, though it doesn't make real sense to do quad radio CDMA/GSM/LTE/Wimax phones

Though, I can see a scenario where Sprint becomes the first carrier to support CDMA and GSM under one banner, without trying to consolidate them, but nurturing both.

 

[Rigmaster]

This seems like a stretch. The only reason for this would be for Sprint to get into the LTE bandwagon while keeping Wimax. Would it mean having both CDMA and GSM, probably. Would that be better if it meant dropping all the other things Sprint currently supports (esp. iDen), yes.

I don't know how it would work, but I think the other unspoken merit could be giving Sprint better international compatibility.

I'm still not sold that this merger makes a lot of sense, but I'm also not convinced that both of these companies will survive. TMo's probably more on the ropes, and Sprint getting it at the right price and with some support/concessions by the parent company could help.

 

[Knewz]

No way. Sprint must have learned its lesson from the Nextel fiasco.

Well that was a whole different story altogether. If Sprint does finally decide to go LTE and Tmo gets on board also, the transition will be much more smooth. That whole iDEN to CDMA was a mess though i agree

 

[RiverOfIce]

Once again, why would sprint go to lte?

 

[dan330]

you could keep saying that.. asking that...

i hope they dont go to lte

 

[Rigmaster]

I don't want Sprint to go LTE, but they're not clearly putting out that they won't. Since there's no strong statement otherwise, I just look at how or why would Sprint want to do this. I don't see it, but it's not impossible.

Hesse was just quoted today saying the Sprint-Clearwire-Wimax rollout and plans will be executed as designed. Dan has me confused.

Every day this is enterntaining though.

 

[RiverOfIce]

What will happen if sprint goes to lte?

Nothing.

LTE will NOT...
1.) Make your sprint phone run quicker or faster network.
2.) Allow you to roam on verizon's/att LTE network.
3.) Allow you to unlock you phone to verizon's/att's LTE network.
4.) Expand sprint's network beyond current areas.

It will be just like wimax, but have a new name. And allow sprint to charge you for every thing you do.

 

[dan330]

i agree what you said... but would it at least raise the speed and connectability/availability where it is?

 

[twospirits]

While i agree with ROI comments, I need to ask one question. If Sprint does aquire T-Mobile and does goes the LTE route (with Wimax intact), does that give it more international coverage. International coverage is one thing that Sprint is lacking when compared to the other carriers.

TS

 

[RiverOfIce]

While i agree with ROI comments, I need to ask one question. If Sprint does aquire T-Mobile and does goes the LTE route (with Wimax intact), does that give it more international coverage. International coverage is one thing that Sprint is lacking when compared to the other carriers.

TS

Actually wimax is the better route for international coverage.

But with both lte and wimax, do to spectrum allocation, full international coverage is impossible.

You verzion lte phone will NOT work in most of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Like now, you will need to get an international version of it.

Verizon lte will operate at uplink 777 - 787mhz and downlink 746 - 756 mhz

At&t will operate at uplink 704 - 716mhz and downlink 734 - 746 mhz

But most of europe is going to us the 2.6 GHz band, along with the 790 MHz to 862, for rural areas (uk). There is nothing in the spectrum of lte that could use the 2.6GHz spectrum. They could use the 790 MHz area(uplink 832 - 862MHz, downlink 791 - 821 MHz ) , which would be channel 20, but only in places that supported it and would require you to change over voice to lte.

After the full conversion to lte they will have a lot more spectrum, including some cross over bandwidth, but all of the cross over bandwidth will be in the 790mhz to 862 mhz which is dedicated to only to rural areas in uk.

 

[viber]

I am content with Wimax. I can play Blackops, and watch HD netflix, plus I can eat up as much bandwidth as I want without worrying about a $1000 bill.

In theory, LTE has faster down/up, and far lower latency, which is better for gamers for sure.

But that is theory. Just wait till they, verizon, get some actual traffic and then lets talk real speed.

I just ran this test a few minutes ago. Mind you this is during peak time.

 

[RiverOfIce]

In theory, LTE has faster down/up, and far lower latency, which is better for gamers for sure.

No and no. Wimax will be slightly faster, about 128mbps compared to 100mbps. Latency with wimax is just the simple fact how the network is ran, in most cases you run from the tower, to land cable, to a connection hub, to the internet and back, sprint forces wimax to do this. LTE offers direct from to tower to internet.

With video game and hd video, wimax is a better technology.

LTE will sends and forgets. Which means if you start to get corrupted data, lte will just keep sending it.

Wimax will slow down the connection and start to monitor the connection to make sure the throughput is actually good data. Better for your game and hd video.

 

[mak916]

I think with any merger you have certain risks involved. If Sprint can make this work, I say go for it. Just don't rush into it and try to figure it all out as you go.

Why is no one talking about this over in the T-Mobile forum?

 

[dan330]

go ask them!

 

[~Cha~]

On a totally different but related note :

In PR something similar to the Sprint nom nomming TMO fiasco happened.

It Involved AT&T and Centennial ( the biggest mobile phone provider in PR)

Centennial works on CDMA while AT&T works in GSM


AT&T got tired of waiting for Centennial to sell so they just outright did a hostile takeover fo the company. Now AT&T is trying to muscle all of the old centennial users out of the CDMA network so they can overhaul it to use exclusively for GSM or something to that extend i don't know a lot of the technical side.
What i do know is that my friend who works in the only department that is left after the takeover (business contracts and networking from centennial) Is pissy pissy everyday because the CDMA network is buckling under such heavy data usage and literally killing all the calls made from centennial phones on the spot.
Sprint works on CDMA (der!) and had most of its antennas rented from Centennial. Obviously thats not the case anymore AT&T killed Sprint coverage in PR.

Point is; having two different networks under one banner is (at least for me) not unheard of and not impossible. The EURO version of the Galaxy S Vibrant runs both CDMA and GSM signals. Having Sprint and TMO merge (hostile take over or whatever those crazy kids are thinking about) would actually make some sense... at least from over here in PR.

Sprint is #3 and TMO #4. but individually neither of them can compete on equal standing with Verizon and AT&T just because of the sheer number of clients they have. By merging SprinTMO*(patent pending ) they could get closer to compete with them with numbers.

Thats my two cents.

PS: I work for TMO in PR and we were completely blindsided by the information. And so was Sprint PR. Apparently the US branches want to keep everything hush hush till the numbers are on paper. Also they dont want to cause panic with the employees. (happened to centennial when they heard about the AT&T takeover... they are still sorting out all the stolen accounts/equipment)

 

[KitsapAndroid]

Well, looks like this was wrong cause AT&T just bought T-Mobile USA. Here's some articles -- AT&T To Buy T-Mobile USA From Deutsche Telekom - Quick Facts

AT&T to Buy T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion - NYTimes.com

AT&T Buying T-Mobile USA In $39 Billion Deal

 

[dan330]

question... will att ... take tmobile's name.. to loose the past bad press of att service???