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Sprint 'Betting Big On Trump,' Could Merge With T-Mobile Or Comcast (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Speculation that Sprint will merge with T-Mobile USA or another competitor has ramped up since the inauguration of President Donald Trump. That continued Friday when a report from The New York Times suggested that Sprint could be combined with either T-Mobile or Comcast, the nation's largest cable company. Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of Sprint owner SoftBank, "and his financial advisers are weighing several major possible deals for Sprint," the Times wrote. "Be it a tie-up with T-Mobile U.S., Sprint's closest competitor, or a more ambitious marriage with the cable colossus Comcast, a transaction would allow Mr. Son to fulfill a long-held ambition to invest aggressively in wireless networks in the United States and enable next-generation mobile technology." Titled "The World's Top Tech Investor Is Betting Big on Trump," the Times report says that "the Trump administration's push for lighter regulation and lower taxes has been a powerful lure for cash-rich investors the world over." SoftBank, which is based in Japan, had several of its executives "spen[d] a day in Washington talking to senior members of Mr. Trump's economic team" last month, according to bankers who were briefed on the meetings, the Times report said. U.S. regulators opposed wireless consolidation during the Obama administration, preventing potential mergers between AT&T and T-Mobile and later between Sprint and T-Mobile. With four major nationwide carriers, U.S. wireless competition recently led to an expansion of unlimited data plans.
> I'm going to risk the inevitable downmod from the rabid hard right and alt-right types by finally thinking that we have maybe another six to nine months before even a majority of Republicans in Congress begin planning to remove this imbecile from office.
Ah, pause your actions, all! Heed and record the March prediction from MightyMartian!
We'll add this to the February prediction of "I honestly think Bannon's days are numbered", the January prediction of "Congress is going to start moving to claw back the Presidency's legislatively enabled executive powers", the December prediction of " a man of Trump's age is unlikely to be seeking a second term" (he registered for 2020 on the evening of inauguration day, so he is, unprecedentedly, the only declared 2020 candidate), and of course the November prediction that "I am so going to enjoy rubbing it into Trump supporter's faces on Wednesday.".