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T-Mobile USA to merge with Sprint Nextel?
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According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, T-Mobile USA parent company Deutsche Telekom is mulling a bid to acquire Sprint Nextel. The acquisition would lead to a combined T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel, which would make for the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. Sprint Nextel boasts a market capitalization of $22 billion after its revenue fell to $40.1 billion in 2007 from $41 billion a year earlier--the operator also booked a net loss of $29.5 billion in the fourth quarter due to a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $29.7 billion. At the end of its fourth quarter, Sprint was still the No. 3 carrier with 53.8 million subscribers. With 28.7 million customers at the end of December, T-Mobile USA lags a distant fourth, but a merger with Sprint would roughly triple its subscriber base and vault the company ahead of AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
Sprint uses CDMA technology and T-Mobile USA uses GSM, which has led some to predict LTE could be the technology that bridges the two carriers. That, of course, leaves Sprint's WiMAX build out plans in the lurch. Would regulators really allow the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. carriers merge?
For more on the report:
- read the full article at WSJ (sub. req.)
Related:
Sprint, it's time to take the money
Is Comcast planning to buy Sprint?
Sprint's troubles inspire rumor mill
More stories about subscriber base Deutsche Telekom Comcast Wireless Carriers CDMA Verizon Wireless Sprint T-Mobile
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | May 6, 2008 - 10:14am
This merger wouldn't make sense and I don't believe it will happen. Maybe if T-Mobile sold their GSM network to AT&T and went CDMA/IDEN would it have a shot at success. Say what you will about Nextel, those millions of construction workers aren't about to lose Direct Connect. It's the stickiest customer base for business there is.
Posted by Anonymous | May 12, 2008 - 5:53pm
I am not sure what happened here but wasn't Direct Connect or Push To Talk (or the ill fated attempt to patent the term Walkie Talkie by Nextel) always going to be replaced by a Push To talk type of application on Cellular or in the case of Verizon it would have been CDMA. I seem to recall the technology being called PoC even. Hmm whatever happened to that.
BC
Posted by Anonymous | June 2, 2008 - 11:28am
I was a Nextel employee working at tier * support. When Sprint took over, things were really ugly. Practically eveyone on Nextel side got either demoted or transferred to Kansas. The only people who actually got the best deal would be then CEO of Nextel and the manager for direct connect. The manager was promoted to VP and moved to Kansas and CEO got paid straight. I really felt sorry for those who couldn't leave Nextel even if they were offer better position with pay for different company due to their accumulated employee stock. I was only there for short time so I didn't lose that much but most people with good tenure have accumulated enough to set them for a life time.
Posted by Anonymous | August 19, 2008 - 4:28am
Actually, I'm kind of excited about this merger.
Of course, for about a year's time, it will start out horri ble but it should all work out after this whole mess.
I'm sure they can find a way to convert CDMA and iDEN cell towers within a year to be able to accomodate T-Mobile GSM subscribers.
And trust me, I need that lol ( I have t-mobile )
Plus hello, were talking about deutsche telekom here!
Posted by Anonymous | August 19, 2008 - 4:29am
Actually, I'm kind of excited about this merger.
Of course, for about a year's time, it will start out horri ble but it should all work out after this whole mess.
I'm sure they can find a way to convert CDMA and iDEN cell towers within a year to be able to accomodate T-Mobile GSM subscribers.
And trust me, I need that lol ( I have t-mobile )
Plus hello, were talking about deutsche telekom here!
Posted by Anonymous | May 2, 2009 - 6:36pm
No way, the merge wont happen, the two technoliges will crash, When compnaines merge with other companies or buy out other companies they need similar or same technology, look at verizon and alltel, or cingular and ATT, they had the same techonology, it would be too costly for them to switch, even with LTe for tmobile, and stupid wimax for sprint, plus the data devices and upcoming devices for sprint, to cancel there orders and make compatiable technology, plus, tmobile would have a deficit to take over and probably never overcome, this wont happen, and the coverage area wouldnt be compatiable, meaning GSM cant roam off of CDMA, IDEN technology, to expensive for tmobile to convert and they simply dont have the income to swithc visa versa to convert for sprint over to there technology, if anything, it would be another big CDMA carrier like verizon buying them out, but that wont happen, if anything AT&T would buy out Tmobile, improve coverage area and it would be win a win technolgoy, the only thing is tmobiles stupid 3g Frequency would have to stop because no one operates off that, itd be an easy fix since they dont have that many frequencys to change over.
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