Sprint, T-Mobile Aiming To Reach Merger Deal Next Week (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint have made progress in negotiating merger terms and are aiming to successfully complete deal talks as early as next week. The combined company would have more than 127 million customers and could create more formidable competition for the No.1 and No.2 wireless players, Verizon and AT&T, amid a race to expand offerings in 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. T-Mobile majority-owner Deutsche Telekom and Japan's SoftBank, which controls Sprint, are considering an agreement that would dictate how they exercise voting control over the combined company. This could allow Deutsche Telekom to consolidate the combined company on its books, even without owning a majority stake. Deutsche Telekom owns more than 63 percent of T-Mobile, while SoftBank owns 84.7 percent of Sprint. Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile are also in the process of finalizing the debt financing package they will use to fund the deal, the sources said. There is no certainty that a deal will be reached, the sources cautioned.

Comments

different wireless protocols

[FudRucker]

Sprint uses CDMA while T-Mobile uses GSM, i bet i can guess who the boss will be in this merger, T-Mobile is basically going to take over Sprint, which is okay by me, the sooner CDMA dies and all that old equipment is removed from service the better

Re:different wireless protocols

[squiggleslash]

Sprint is migrating to the LTE variant of GSM, so their cdmaOne/cdma2000 network is increasingly a legacy/gap filler rather than their primary means to providing service, and would eventually be turned off. So that would be happening anyway, albeit more slowly than will happen if T-Mo takes control.

That said, T-Mobile being in control is pretty much a foregone conclusion. T-Mobile is well run and is growing. Sprint PCS has been beleaguered for a longer period than Apple was. It's always been poorly run, with no sense of direction. They botched the NEXTEL merger, initially went for WiMAX instead of LTE, and recently their "iPhone only" thing showed a complete lack of understanding of the market.

T-Mo has its faults, but it's almost always (with the exception of the period starting a year or two before they tried to merge with AT&T until Legere's takeover) been an extremely well run company with a focus on respecting their customers, building their network on quality open standards. (I sound like a shill, but I honestly have a high level of respect for them that I just don't have for the others, and it's based upon personal experience. That period I mention that included the AT&T merger was a bitter experience, proof any company can go to pot.)