Deutsche Telekom Agrees to Sell T-Mobile USA to SoftBank

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Japanese mobile corporation Softbank has an agreement in hand from Deutsch Telecom to purchase T-Mobile (USA). The deal, once completed, will join Softbank’s purchase of Sprint last year with Deutsch Telecom’s T-Mobile (USA). Final approval will depend on the findings of the FCC and Justice Department.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has pushed for a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, saying a combined company is necessary to successfully compete with the two largest mobile carriers.
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Could actually be a good thing ... as individual companies Sprint and T-Mobile are too small to adequately compete with AT&T and Verizon ... a combined company would be a strong number 3 instead of a two weak number 3 and 4s ... but since a decision against the merger would benefit AT&T and Verizon I would expect the government to decide against the merger to protect the two bigger companies from competition
 
Yes, lets sell T-Mobile to Sprint who'll turn around and jack up the service plan prices and impose data caps on all plans. Yay capitalism!
 
madmat said:
Yes, lets sell T-Mobile to Sprint who'll turn around and jack up the service plan prices and impose data caps on all plans. Yay capitalism!
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That's what I'd be afraid of. T-Mobile has been damn good service here in Vegas for really cheap. I'd hate for what they've done plan wise to go away.
 
Isn't this going to be a nightmare since Sprint is CDMA and T-Mobile is GSM? Other than LTE, they don't share anything in common and phones wouldn't work on the networks unless they are newer and have all of the radios built in. I guess it would be a good incentive for them to finally roll out more LTE.
 
Yea, I have been a loyal T-Mobile for over 10 years, they are the best.

It makes me sad that the parent company is always trying to sell off T-Mobile. Is it really so unprofitable?
 
I'm on the fence on whether I'd like this merger to go through. I have never used sprint, but friends and co-workers have reported poor sprint service in my general area (nw indiana and chicago area).
in any case, i'm not sure that this merger will go through. the powers that be probably won't want to see a foreign country having such a large stake in the USA wireless market. Plus, ATT are probably still butt-hurt and will try to put the kibosh on it.
 
oh dang! it's not letting me edit my post. i wanted to add the fact that i have been a t-mobile customer for about a year. I initially only had HSPA+ available in my area, which really wasn't bad for what/how I use my smartphone, but I now have LTE almost everywhere I go.
 
Been with TMo since Voicestream days. This has me worried that if this goes through TMo's great deals and no contract services will end.
 
Teenk9 said:
Been with TMo since Voicestream days. This has me worried that if this goes through TMo's great deals and no contract services will end.
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I wouldn't worry ... as someone else has noted it is likely that AT&T will lobby for a block (if for no other reason than spite) and Verizon is unlikely to support this merger either ... as separate companies neither T-Mobile or Sprint present a major threat to the two larger companies ... if they are combined they become much more threatening as their combined market percentage would be within 10-15% of their larger rivals (separately they are more like 50%)
 
I can't wait to see the network Softbank builds here in the US with all that spectrum they will have if the merger goes through.
 
Great, just get to like the T-Mobile plan and they will find a way to F it up.

Unregulated capitalism results in cannibalism until there is one fat lazy worthless lump of monopoly left .... burp. :eek::p
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Great, just get to like the T-Mobile plan and they will find a way to F it up.

Unregulated capitalism results in cannibalism until there is one fat lazy worthless lump of monopoly left .... burp. :eek::p
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I was planning on dumping Verizon for T-Mobile as well.. I guess that won't be happening any more.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Isn't this going to be a nightmare since Sprint is CDMA and T-Mobile is GSM? Other than LTE, they don't share anything in common and phones wouldn't work on the networks unless they are newer and have all of the radios built in. I guess it would be a good incentive for them to finally roll out more LTE.
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Didn't seem to matter much when TMobile bought out MetroPCS and when AT&T bought out Cricket.
 
techrat said:
Didn't seem to matter much when TMobile bought out MetroPCS and when AT&T bought out Cricket.
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T-Mobile had coverage everywhere MetroPCS does AFAIK. The main thing T-Mobile gained was LTE in certain areas and they converting the CDMA areas to LTE. I just hope they go the GSM route if this does happen and not the CDMA route.
 
xIronCrossx said:
T-Mobile had coverage everywhere MetroPCS does AFAIK. The main thing T-Mobile gained was LTE in certain areas and they converting the CDMA areas to LTE. I just hope they go the GSM route if this does happen and not the CDMA route.
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LTE is GSM.

GSM is WCDMA.

So technically... everyone went the CDMA route. ;)

In the end, what would really be nice is that all phones sold in the US contain all the bands used in the US so I wouldn't have to deal with bullshit carrier exclusives that can't be used anywhere else.
 
techrat said:
In the end, what would really be nice is that all phones sold in the US contain all the bands used in the US so I wouldn't have to deal with bullshit carrier exclusives that can't be used anywhere else.
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Unless the folks in the US want to pay more for phones I don't see that happening ... The phone manufacturers are in the business for profit and they make more money with exclusives (due to the carrier subsidies) than they do with non-exclusives ... I agree that if we eliminated subsidized phones in the US and all consumers paid full price for the phone directly to the manufacturer then we could eliminate the exclusive models (that would also force the carriers to compete on price and service since phone competition wouldn't be an option) ...

it might also offer a little more competition since in the subsidized model only two phone manufacturers are making a profit (Samsung and Apple ... most of the others are losing money)
 
Hallucinator said:
Oh boy... here we go again. Leave T-Mobile alone.
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Only Verizon and AT&T are self owned ... both Sprint and T-Mobile belong to parent companies (Softbank from Japan and Deutsche Telecom from Germany, respectively) so the desire to sell them can be driven by the interests of the parent company ... since Google has an interest in expanding into the phone business it is too bad they couldn't pony up the money and buy T-Mobile ... Amazon would be a good choice too but I doubt they have the cash to make a purchase that large
 
We were all in favor of the Metro-PCS sale, and for damn good reason...

Their TV Ads were SO FUCKING STUPID I couldn't stand hearing them any more. :eek:

And that was why we all supported the sale. :cool:
 
I was thinking of switching to Tmobile because Sprint is so bad but this is bad news.

Since the uncarrier initiative has gotten people to switch, we have only heard bad news. Tmobile has gotten rid of their employer discounts and now they are soon to be tained by Sprint's bad handling.
 
Staples said:
I was thinking of switching to Tmobile because Sprint is so bad but this is bad news.

Since the uncarrier initiative has gotten people to switch, we have only heard bad news. Tmobile has gotten rid of their employer discounts and now they are soon to be tained by Sprint's bad handling.
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It is not clear that this acquisition will be approved ... AT&T and Verizon are both likely to oppose this and they will have a lot of clout in the decision
 
I just switched to T-Mobile a month ago, got a good deal Samsung Galaxy SII refurb for $106 no contract and I am on the $50 a month plan, even though the SII is only 4G i still get 3-4 megabits and under 100ms latency where iam at, and the call quality is fine. I just hope they keep the T-Mobile name and shutdown sprints CDMA network, It would be sad to think of ATT as the only GSM provider in the US.
 
What I find amusing about this thread is that everyone assumes T-Mobile will automatically become like Sprint when it's not Sprint buying out T-Mobile, but SoftBank... who happens to own Sprint for about 6 months now.
 
techrat said:
What I find amusing about this thread is that everyone assumes T-Mobile will automatically become like Sprint when it's not Sprint buying out T-Mobile, but SoftBank... who happens to own Sprint for about 6 months now.
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I doubt we will see anything different with the plans to be honest, but we could maybe see some messed up management decisions.
 
LTE is gsm based not cdma. Thats why all LTE phones need sim cards. Long Term Evolution plan is what LTE means it is a method to unified the wireless carrier so that there are not a bunch of competing standards. I would not touch sprint but article looked like it was softbank that bought sprint so you would need to find someone who has had sprint for six months post the buy out of sprint to know if the service is going to go down or up. As to t-mobile selling the company they have been trying to get out of the us market for a couple years. I would not want keep service with them if they were sold to verzion or AT&T but if another company that had a good past taking care of it customers were to buy them lock stock and barrel it would have a good chance of staying the same if t-mobile is profitable now.

Plus I have a feeling that softbank might just be buying companies for their assets, of which loyal customers are a commodity. Should be interesting to see how this turns out.
 
techrat said:
What I find amusing about this thread is that everyone assumes T-Mobile will automatically become like Sprint when it's not Sprint buying out T-Mobile, but SoftBank... who happens to own Sprint for about 6 months now.
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I find it more amusing that people think this will be approved ... Verizon and AT&T will not want this as a combined Sprint/T-Mobile (even under the same parent company) is too much of a threat to them ... AT&T will also not want this approved after their own attempt to buy T-Mobile was denied ... which companies are likely to have more power to sway American politicians, the Japanese company (Softbank) or the two American ones (Verizon and AT&T)
 
drakken said:
LTE is gsm based not cdma. Thats why all LTE phones need sim cards. Long Term Evolution plan is what LTE means it is a method to unified the wireless carrier so that there are not a bunch of competing standards. I would not touch sprint but article looked like it was softbank that bought sprint so you would need to find someone who has had sprint for six months post the buy out of sprint to know if the service is going to go down or up. As to t-mobile selling the company they have been trying to get out of the us market for a couple years. I would not want keep service with them if they were sold to verzion or AT&T but if another company that had a good past taking care of it customers were to buy them lock stock and barrel it would have a good chance of staying the same if t-mobile is profitable now.

Plus I have a feeling that softbank might just be buying companies for their assets, of which loyal customers are a commodity. Should be interesting to see how this turns out.
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Well GSM 3G is based on WCDMA, so I would assume it's still similar in that way.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Well GSM 3G is based on WCDMA, so I would assume it's still similar in that way.
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Shouldn't have clicked post yet...

Anyways, UMTS and HSPA are based off of WCDMA, and LTE is based off of UMTS/HSPA. So, based on that it is technically CDMA based.
 
Get ready for Softbank to stick their brand on the combined company.
 
Everyone in this thread is letting words fall out of their empty, worthless heads and claiming this spells the end of T-Mobile. Did any of you know-nothing imbeciles think for a second that this spells the end of Sprint instead?
 
xIronCrossx said:
Isn't this going to be a nightmare since Sprint is CDMA and T-Mobile is GSM? Other than LTE, they don't share anything in common and phones wouldn't work on the networks unless they are newer and have all of the radios built in. I guess it would be a good incentive for them to finally roll out more LTE.
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This is what I was thinking. The ONLY reason the AT&T and T-Mo merger made a lick of sense was because they were both GSM. How is this gonna work logistically given the difference in infrastructure and spectrum?
 
TheBlueChanell said:
This is what I was thinking. The ONLY reason the AT&T and T-Mo merger made a lick of sense was because they were both GSM. How is this gonna work logistically given the difference in infrastructure and spectrum?
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Because this isn't a merger of two companies really but two companies who are owned by the same parent company (SoftBank) ,,, perhaps the parent co feels that having access to 100 million USA subscribers is valuable or maybe they plan to have both convert to LTE ... SoftBank must see some advantage to this
 
Really dont see this as a merger just the parent company will own both. I am curious to the play on SoftBank on purchasing two different carriers with two different types of infrastructure. I have been with t-mobile since voicestream like several others and has been a very pleasant time.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
This is what I was thinking. The ONLY reason the AT&T and T-Mo merger made a lick of sense was because they were both GSM. How is this gonna work logistically given the difference in infrastructure and spectrum?
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Eventually all networks will be LTE...so it maters less then it did in the past. Cost of making phones which work on both networks is not cost prohibitive as it was in the past. The hope here is that three strong options will give consumers better selection than the current arrangement.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
This is what I was thinking. The ONLY reason the AT&T and T-Mo merger made a lick of sense was because they were both GSM. How is this gonna work logistically given the difference in infrastructure and spectrum?
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As I said before...

It seemed to make no different to TMobile when they bought out MetroPCS and AT&T when they bought out Cricket.
 
T-Mobile is the least obnoxious of all the Phone Companies. Leave them the fuck alone.
 
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