Developing news:
T-Mobile (owned by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom) and Sprint (majority stake by Japanese owner SoftBank) have announced a roughly 26 billion merger agreement today, and they “hope to close the deal by the first half of 2019.”
T-Mobile and Sprint have flirted with discussions of mergers before. There was always the uncertainty of whether a merger would get past antitrust reviews and other regulatory hurdles.
This merger is touted as a way to combine the subscriber base for T-Mobile/Sprint to compete against the #1 and #2 carriers (Verizon and AT&T, respectively). The merger would give them the resources and scale to roll out “the next generation of ultra-fast wireless technology, called 5G.” Some sources have indicated that “T-Mobile will not be liable to pay Sprint a breakup fee should regulators block the deal”
Initial Thoughts
I can’t say I’m too surprised by this development. There had been reports of active discussions over the last week.
I have mixed feelings about this development. I have written extensively about my experience with T-Mobile and Sprint, as they’ve both been my wireless providers for the greater part of a decade.
On the one hand, I like both Sprint and T-Mobile. I doubt that there would be significant impact on the “existing customer”; I suspect most plans would be grandfathered in. A combined company might very well allow them to scale their resources better.
Long term, a merger that would combine #3 and #4 of the largest telecom companies doesn’t bode well for consumers. I’ve always been a big proponent of healthy consumer competition, since competition drives innovation. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen some great innovation coming out of T-Mobile with their “Un-Carrier” moves. Those moves disrupted the market and offered more options for consumers.
I shouldn’t penalize T-Mobile for it. However, since T-Mobile was also so good at what it did, in some ways, I selfishly don’t want the merger to go through.
I guess we will have to see if the deal will really go through this time.
Are you concerned about this merger development?
DH and I have been Sprint customers for many, many years. Service in our area is fine, but T-mobile isn’t. DH is heavy phone user, but I’m not He’s very happy with Sprint, has had an unlimited everything plan for years. Now that we are retired and traveling a bit more, what we really like is Sprint’s free global roaming. We are OK with the speed and it works for us. I had toyed with switching to T-mobile for their better overseas coverage/speed but the local coverage just wasn’t going to work. So now we wait and see what develops.
I had been pretty happy with Sprint for a long time, too. And one of the things I like about Sprint is its free international roaming (almost the same as t-mobile; I believe fewer countries covered and that feature is marketed less heavily than T-mobile). You can’t go wrong with either company on that front.
I was slightly worried when I switched to T-Mobile but the coverage map says my area has LTE (and that had been my experience), so I’ve mostly been a happy camper. Not having good local coverage would be concerning, that’s for sure.
Thanks for your comment!
I am a T-Mo customer. I appreciate the T-Mo customer service when their promotions sometimes don’t work out properly. I never had to phone for a network issue, it just works.
I pray that they do not merge operations in a way that kills T-Mo. I also hope they stay GSM so that they continue seamless connections when I travel.
I see a need to merge, this gives them the size to efficiently upgrade to G5 and ultimately will help keep competition. Without a merger, I have read that Sprint and T-mobile do not have the resources to move to 5G
At “some” point, they will have to decide on a network (unless they just maintain status quo), but I certainly hope T-Mobile stays GSM too! One of the minor reasons I switched from Sprint.
I’m a T-Mobile customer who also happens to be a telecom engineer. We’ve been hooking up T-Mobile cell towers like crazy in my area, drastically improving what had been typical ok but not great T-Mobile coverage. This has been my reason for not switching to Sprint for the bonus 25000 AADVANTAGE miles. I think it’s a good time to switch for the bonus if it doesn’t immediately disappear seeing as Sprint will be T-Mobile soon anyway.