T-Mobile and MetroPCS to Merge

Metro takes over the larger T-Mobile, but they keep T-Mobile's name and CEO. Odd, but it makes sense financially. Makes T-Mobile a publicly traded company so DT can eventually cut ties.
 
Metro isn't taking over squat...t-mobile is in control of the new entity.....especially with DT retaining a large share...
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Metro isn't taking over squat...t-mobile is in control of the new entity.....especially with DT retaining a large share...
Click to expand...

It's been called a reverse merger, the smaller Metro PCS is buying T-Mobile. DT holds onto 74% stake and MetroPCS has 26%, T-Mobile has 0%. This is MetroPCS's company now, they are just using the T-Mobile name and it's CEO.
 
Ozymandias said:
Source.

It's a good deal for T-Mobile because they need more spectrum for LTE to ensure their future. More details on what's going with each company's network. I hope this leads to a resurgence of T-Mobile as a player in the US, because more choice is always better for us customers.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is going to lead to a resurgence. Both companies are losing subscribers, Metro PCS lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter. Both companies combined are still smaller than Sprint.

I think the new T-Mobile is going to turn into a strong budget carrier. Already T-Mobile has been missing out on quite a few high end handsets. And I think this will just get worse and we'll just be seeing more low end and mid-range phones. No iPhone, no HTC One X, no Nokia 920, etc.

However we need a good pre-paid carrier. I love T-Mobile's 100 minute-5GB $30 pre-paid plan, I hope the new company can do more things like this.
 
Ravynmagi said:
I don't think this is going to lead to a resurgence. Both companies are losing subscribers, Metro PCS lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter. Both companies combined are still smaller than Sprint.

I think the new T-Mobile is going to turn into a strong budget carrier. Already T-Mobile has been missing out on quite a few high end handsets. And I think this will just get worse and we'll just be seeing more low end and mid-range phones. No iPhone, no HTC One X, no Nokia 920, etc.

However we need a good pre-paid carrier. I love T-Mobile's 100 minute-5GB $30 pre-paid plan, I hope the new company can do more things like this.
Click to expand...

Yes but they also have the highest number of prepaid customers as well. I feel a fundamental shift will occur, I know I personally will be switching to straightalk once the new nexus arrives. I'm tired of paying out of my nose for sub par data speeds.
 
Slashdot just asked their readers what the best cell phone provider was:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/2236207/ask-slashdot-best-cell-phone-carrier-in-the-us

What I gathered from what everyone there said:

Verizon: best coverage by a long shot, bad customer service, highest prices
AT&T: less coverage than Verizon but faster, bad customer service, prices lower than Verizon but still high
Sprint: nobody seemed to have a single good thing to say about them
T-Mobile: best customer service by a long shot, lowest prices, low coverage, low data speeds, forget it if you're rural
MetroPCS: not even mentioned
 
Ravynmagi said:
It's been called a reverse merger, the smaller Metro PCS is buying T-Mobile. DT holds onto 74% stake and MetroPCS has 26%, T-Mobile has 0%. This is MetroPCS's company now, they are just using the T-Mobile name and it's CEO.
Click to expand...

You have to understand the reasoning of doing it this way, and it's not because MetroPCS wanted to buy TMO. It was done this way so that DT can have most of the shares, and TMO will be spun off as a separate company. This gives DT the option to get out of the US market slowly by selling off when the stock gets higher or by some other company having to buy them out, either way they'll hopefully make a profit. The keeping of the T-Mobile name is just a formality until DT is ready to sell, similar to how AT&T wireless (the first one) basically was renting the AT&T name for several years before they merged with Cingular.

The bottom line is DT still wants out, they are just trying to do a flip on their investment to see if it will pay off a year or two from now.
 
evilsofa said:
Slashdot just asked their readers what the best cell phone provider was:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/2236207/ask-slashdot-best-cell-phone-carrier-in-the-us

What I gathered from what everyone there said:

MetroPCS: not even mentioned
Click to expand...

MetroPCS is technically regional, mostly in the South and around NY which is why most people haven't heard of them. They tried buying Cricket a couple of times several years ago but they never could agree. In the end they still worked out a deal however where they can roam on each others network basically making a nationwide network.
 
evilsofa said:
Slashdot just asked their readers what the best cell phone provider was:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/2236207/ask-slashdot-best-cell-phone-carrier-in-the-us

What I gathered from what everyone there said:

MetroPCS: not even mentioned
Click to expand...

This might not have been modded up when you looked, but it is now:

Re:T-Mobile for service. (Score:4, Insightful)
by mcrbids (148650) on Tuesday October 02, @11:59PM (#41534295)

Or MetroPCS. I've been MetroPCS customers for years since I got tired of Verizon's (over)pricing games. Coverage is actually pretty good (in Nevada/California) the price is excellent, unlimited EVERYTHING for $50.

No, I have no affiliation other than being a happy customer. Customer service is almost non-existent, but we've never felt the need for it because it just works and the bill is (ahem) flat rate.

Also, contracts are month to month and if you are too late, your phone just stops working. When you pay the bill your phone starts working within an hour or so. There is no collections department.

IMHO, this is cellular done right.
Click to expand...
:p
 
Ravynmagi said:
I don't think this is going to lead to a resurgence. Both companies are losing subscribers, Metro PCS lost 200,000 subscribers last quarter. Both companies combined are still smaller than Sprint.

I think the new T-Mobile is going to turn into a strong budget carrier. Already T-Mobile has been missing out on quite a few high end handsets. And I think this will just get worse and we'll just be seeing more low end and mid-range phones. No iPhone, no HTC One X, no Nokia 920, etc.
Click to expand...
T-Mo will pick up more top-end handsets when they don't need to create a specific version for their stupid UMTS1700 frequency.
This deal gives them more AWS spectrum for LTE and more PCS frequency for UMTS. While they'll need to shuffle customers off of CDMA over time, it's definitely a good thing.

As to your list, remember that even verizon doesn't have any OneX or nokia 920 variants. The re-farm is a HUGE thing for T-Mobile towards being frequency compatible with ATT and the rest of the world. Once that is done and T-Mo can release phones without UMTS1700 support, it becomes much easier for them to get new phones and for customers to use their existing phones on TY-Mo's network.
 
evilsofa said:
Slashdot just asked their readers what the best cell phone provider was:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/2236207/ask-slashdot-best-cell-phone-carrier-in-the-us

What I gathered from what everyone there said:

Verizon: best coverage by a long shot, bad customer service, highest prices
AT&T: less coverage than Verizon but faster, bad customer service, prices lower than Verizon but still high
Sprint: nobody seemed to have a single good thing to say about them
T-Mobile: best customer service by a long shot, lowest prices, low coverage, low data speeds, forget it if you're rural
MetroPCS: not even mentioned
Click to expand...
I'm on T-Mobile pre-pay and can back most of that up personally. Though my data speeds are FAST. I've gotten 6-7mbps down 3-4mbps up from a 4g area. On the flip side at my new job in a pretty rural area my speeds drop through the floor. I get ~40kbps up/down there... Friggin painful :(
 
i absolutely love the backtoschool family plan on tmobile..

5 family members and my combined bill is 130 :)
2 peeps unlimited everything, 3 peeps 500 mins and unlimited data + texting

i dont get free phones or subsidized phones anymore but thats what craigslist is for lol.
 
Nokia/HTC aren't exactly the best marks to judge carrier/handset availability by... Like someone else said, even VZW didn't/hasn't got a flagship HTC device this year (and the new Incredible was a poor mid range bastard version of the One S). If there's one thing hurting HTC's sales it's the fact that they're not moving the same phones on every carrier like Samsung is.

They talked a lot about putting out less models this year and unifying the brand etc, the EVO was understandable since it was an HTC/Sprint tradition (and functionally it's an improvement on the One X even if it's uglier), but then released the One X on one sole US carrier, the One S on one sole carrier, and they're releasing the One X+ on the same carrier as the One X. Kind of a strategic fail IMO.

Nokia's US smartphone distribution history is even worse but a big chunk of their currently limited lineup is entirely due to WP specific issues (slow sales, late start on CDMA, VZ still burning from the last MS fail, etc).
 
As far as T-mobile... I'm totally switching from Sprint next summer if Sprint's LTE flops (Puerto Rico is slated for early next year, towers are already being worked on). I'm disappointed their unlimited plans don't end up being any cheaper (specially since I pay $64 on Sprint thanks to a 23% discount) but I could easily live with 5GB, possibly even with the famed $30 plan (which would be the biggest appeal to switching).
 
I've had a not so great experience with T-Mobile in terms of coverage. They are EXTREMELY spotty almost everywhere I've had the phone. I called customer service and they even acknowledged how bad my service signal is at my house and basically said "we'll look into it" and that was almost 3 weeks ago and I've heard nothing. I refuse REFUSE to buy $500 cell phone repeater from them because I'm a prepaid customer and therefore not "eligible" for it otherwise.

I love the monthly service package (100 minutes , 5GB data plan for $30 is just great when I can use Google Voice for any long term calls) but I can't get over 2-3 2G bars the majority of the time (unless I go into my backyard right at the fence at the end of my lot where I get 2 bars of 3G).

I hope this MetroPCS buy out will improve service at the very least. As it stands I'll be switching to Straight Talk at the end of the month finally and give that a try.
 
Impulse said:
...even VZW didn't/hasn't got a flagship HTC device this year (and the new Incredible was a poor mid range bastard version of the One S).
Click to expand...

Hey, at least it didn't have a low-res Pentile screen, and came with a removable battery and expandable storage!
 
As a long term user of T-mobile, I can clearly say this is a bad move for Metro. T-mobile with their poor decision making and their lousy infrastructure is a perfect storm for bankruptcy. I live in NYC and I can honestly tell you with T-Mobile you will be lucky to get one bar(signal) indoors. Most times you won't get any signal at all. Of course they will lie to new customers and tell them if you upgrade to a more expensive phone your signal strength will improve. But if you don't accept that suggestion, they will quickly tell you, T-mobile does not guarantee or imply your phone will ever have indoor coverage. I give it a year and half before merger company will go out of business
 
Sitting here at work listening to Pandora on my T-Mo G2. Building is about 3 miles past BFE in the middle of the desert. Getting -95dBm/9asu signal strength on 4G (3 bars on the indicator). At home I usually lose 4G but have full bars on 2G, and always attach it to my home network where I never lose speed. :D Never have any issues with connectivity when I go into the city either, so I've never ran into the spotty coverage thing here.

I guess I'm the oddball in that I don't care about high end phones and the ability to DL at ludicrous speeds. Give me a decent, no-extra crap android phone with a decent contract and you'll never hear from me again (unless you count paying the bills).
 
Not to mention T-Mobile has for 2 lines 80$ with a pretty balanced plan

1000 mins shared (plenty)
Unlimited Texts
2GBs of Full speed 4G and no overages for each line

Or for 50$ for each line, you can have unlimited data. I refuse to pay 70-80$ per line from the big boys.
 
Something that few people seem to be discussing is that Metro runs a CDMA network AFAIK, it's gonna take years for them to really integrate, if they bother to even do it at that level. It's not unheard of, but it seems like an odd move for a small-to-medium sized carrier and the smallest national carrier.

I can't imagine Metro's spectrum holdings span the country so what does T-Mobile really gain? T-Mobile US that is, the European parent company's intentions are very clear, I'm just not sure they 're really gonna get what they want (a better value when they eventually dump the rest of the stock) in this way, gonna take a long ass time if so.
 
MetroPCS already has VoLTE running in Dallas with plans to do it in all of their LTE markets by spring. And their phone customers tend to go through phones quickly (maybe because up until recently they sucked) They had plans to shut down CDMA around the 2015-16 range even before T-Mobile was in the picture.

T-Mobile get's a running VoLTE network, more spectrum in several major cities (all of the west coast, and the Northeast), and it's around the same frequency as they were planning to use, which buys them some time of having to deal with legacy 2G users.
 
VoLTE would basically eliminate all GSM/CDMA compatiability issue. All major carriers in America will be lte sim based.

They can always accelerate the VoLTE roadmap.
 
VoLTE is gonna be a disaster and I'd be incredibly surprised if T-Mobile's nationwide schedule gets advanced in any way because of this deal. Getting Metro's spectrum in a few key areas doesn't help much if it only accounts for a third of the country, and T-mobile is behind even Sprint in LTE deployment.

Furthermore, a lot of the current voice roaming agreements are gonna go out the window when everyone starts moving to VoLTE deployed on entirely different frequencies for each of the major carriers (since each carved out their own spectrum holding), what then? We're gonna end of worse off than we are now unless some things get reworked or we start seeing multi-band LTE phones.
 
Vengance_01 said:
Not to mention T-Mobile has for 2 lines 80$ with a pretty balanced plan

1000 mins shared (plenty)
Unlimited Texts
2GBs of Full speed 4G and no overages for each line
Click to expand...

God, I wish this plan really existed, I'd be on it right away! The actual plan is $80/mo for 1000 minutes, unlimited text. It is then $20/line for unlimited data (2GB full speed, then throttled). So, we're looking at $120/month for that plan before taxes, not $80.

My current plan on AT&T is:

550 anytime minutes (more than we need when you account for rollover and n/we)
unlimited text
grandfathered unlimited on my wife's iPhone (throttled at 3GB)
$10/mo medianet on my international SGS2, and the plan does NOT throttle (I'm at 7GB now but typically go under 2GB)

Total after taxes is $125.20/month. So, that T-Mobile plan would be higher priced than what I currently have, would throttle my wife 1GB earlier and would disable her visual voicemail, and would throttle me period. Also, less rural coverage for when I travel.

Until AT&T takes my medianet plan (as they've done to some Galaxy Nexus and SGS3 users last week), they're my best bet. If they take it, then the $120 T-Mobile plan you mentioned becomes a better bet.
 
@Medion - It does, Look at the value plans (I dont think they are listed online .. ) Our house has:

4x Lines - 1000 Shared minutes, Unlimited text on all phones, and one line with 2GB (This is only $10 a month for the data). It is the plan for those that either bring their own phones, or make payments on phones
 
Depending on how often you upgrade phones it's kind of a wash... You save $20 a line but new phones on contract are often down to $100 a couple months after release.

So let's say you upgrade at least every two years and you spend at least $100 on the upgrade while paying $20 more for that line. Cost of the phone after two years comes out to $480+. If you upgrade to the newest hotness out of pocket every two years on the value plan it's gonna end up costing you roughly the same. You aren't saving a whole lot.

Obviously there's a lot of variables that can shift the advantage slightly in one direction or the other. With the value plan you can obviously upgrade whenever the heck you feel like it and if you think that you'll either upgrade every year or wait longer than two years then it can potentially save you a little bit, not a ton. If you're happy upgrading like clockwork every two years it swings back to classic.

I think one of the two plan types pays more than the other if you opt for unlimited data tho, worth looking into even if you don't think you'll go unlimited for now.
 
Even at a wash, bringing your own phone is better. No bloatware! (that, and they don't subsidize iPhones). My wife uses an iPhone, and I use an international SGS2 (GT-i9100). I would never touch a carrier-branded phone again. Even if it was more expensive, it's worth it to me.

By using the unbranded phone, I'm saving $20/month on my AT&T data plan. If/when they take that away, then I will counter by using T-Mobile.
 
I haven't had an issue with bloatware lately but maybe I'm biased... Only carrier bloat, if you can even call it that, on my current Sprint phone was an app to access account functions and a hotspot app. Besides, on anything with ICS it's fairly trivial to disable bloat. I disabled half a dozen apps on my mother's AT&T One X the other day... They still take up a little storage space but it's no big deal.

That non-smartphone data plan loophole is pretty sweet tho, I'm surprised they haven't cracked down harder on it... It's probably laziness/stupidity more than anything, pretty sure every time a new Nexus comes out and people bring it over to AT&T they catch a few more people trying to do the $10 data option. You'd think a proper IMEI filter would be all or nothing...

Is T-Mobile still allowing people to pay the insurance deductible cost for a phone that isn't even under insurance in order to get a replacement? My cousin did that more than once after damaging his phone, dunno if it was friends cutting him a break or what (he used to manage a store, but this was after he stopped working there), that's one other reason that buying the phone from them on a classic plan might be worthwhile. Bringing your own is definitely more flexible tho.
 
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Impulse said:
VoLTE is gonna be a disaster and I'd be incredibly surprised if T-Mobile's nationwide schedule gets advanced in any way because of this deal. Getting Metro's spectrum in a few key areas doesn't help much if it only accounts for a third of the country, and T-mobile is behind even Sprint in LTE deployment.

Furthermore, a lot of the current voice roaming agreements are gonna go out the window when everyone starts moving to VoLTE deployed on entirely different frequencies for each of the major carriers (since each carved out their own spectrum holding), what then? We're gonna end of worse off than we are now unless some things get reworked or we start seeing multi-band LTE phones.
Click to expand...

Yes, there will be coverage issues at first, but as the current networks start to get turned down things should improve, and yes this will require new phones. Verizon will start to roll out LTE in AWS spectrum starting next year, along with confirming that they intend to sunset 2G and 3G by 2021. As I mentioned Metro planned on 2016, and both AT&T and T-Mobile has said they plan on keeping GSM up for a while too (LTE is loosely based off of GSM, so it's not as critical for either to move quickly). 10 years from now, will you be able to buy a unlocked phone and use it on any carrier? Probably not, but it likely will work with one of them along with the one you are currently with, similar to today.

And don't fall into the belief that since voice will be treated like data that all of the sudden it's going to count against your data bucket. It's a back end change, minutes aren't going anywhere, they just aren't the money maker anymore, like long distance.
 
evilsofa said:
Slashdot just asked their readers what the best cell phone provider was:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/02/2236207/ask-slashdot-best-cell-phone-carrier-in-the-us

What I gathered from what everyone there said:

Verizon: best coverage by a long shot, bad customer service, highest prices
AT&T: less coverage than Verizon but faster, bad customer service, prices lower than Verizon but still high
Sprint: nobody seemed to have a single good thing to say about them
T-Mobile: best customer service by a long shot, lowest prices, low coverage, low data speeds, forget it if you're rural
MetroPCS: not even mentioned
Click to expand...

Having had all those carriers at one point or another, or known people that had them, I'd say that's accurate. I never had Sprint or Metro PCS but friends who did never had anything positive to say about them and calling them didn't always work.
 
I have Sprint and I love their phone and online live chat support. Sprint Store support however is totally ridiculous. But I think T-Mobile might be the only store support that's any decent.
 
CHANG3D said:
I have Sprint and I love their phone and online live chat support. Sprint Store support however is totally ridiculous. But I think T-Mobile might be the only store support that's any decent.
Click to expand...

In-store, T-Mobile is unmatched for customer service quality. I've been in there several times and it's been the most pleasant exchange with a cell phone provider. AT&T and Verizon were always quite the opposite.
 
I was told that Sprint Store employees gets paid 30% commission per phone sale only if they get a 5 out of 5 stars rating. But when they know you're not buying a phone, they couldn't care less! Where as Sprint online and phone supports get more money for every 5 out of 5 star rating doesn't matter if it wasn't sales.

BTW. Verizon is getting rid of 2G/3G by 2021.
http://www.bgr.com/2012/10/11/verizon-2g-3g-cdma-shutdown-date-2021/

P.S. I only have inside information from Sprint. I do work with Sprint engineers sometimes.
 
I've had good experiences with Sprint's in store support and excellent experiences with their phone support. I've bought accessories in store and the rep didn't seem disinterested because I wasn't there for a phone, last time I did I went in asking if the multi-accessory discount applied if I bought three and returned one (duh) and they were nice about it then as well as when I did the return.

Over the phone I've gotten one free Airave (femtocell) with no monthly cost, one free upgrade after they killed the Premier program, had no problem restoring a 500 minute bonus i lost after a recent upgrade (took all of five minutes), and I've never even been charged the activation fee when I upgrade thru an online third party (I hear it's pretty easy to get it credited anyway). Also reset my upgrade date this year for a mealy $125 (I was a year into a two year contract).

My stint of more than a decade with AT&T ended after several horrible CS experiences... There were a couple similar ones but the last one involved me going into a store to ask a few questions about current plans and then saying very clearly "ok thanks, lemme think about it" as I left...

Apparently the employee was high and proceeded to merge two different accounts I had after the fact, then when they split them they were telling me they couldn't restore the plan I had even though they took full blame, had to spend literally a month bouncing between supervisors on the phone to get everything back the way I had it.
 
Medion said:
Even at a wash, bringing your own phone is better. No bloatware!
Click to expand...

Why live with bloat? Install a bloat removed rom and you're done. I did this with my SGS3 shortly after I picked it up.

Try to tell me what apps I can and cant uninstall. They must be outta their minds. Root/debloat are the first things that I do with my phones. :)
 
MrRuckus said:
Why live with bloat? Install a bloat removed rom and you're done. I did this with my SGS3 shortly after I picked it up.
Click to expand...

What's easier? Turning on your unlocked phone and realizing, "Hey, no carrier bloat?" Or, turning on your carrier-locked phone, rooting it, running a bootloader unlock and/or custom bootloader/recovery, and installing a custom ROM?

I'll go with unlocked phone, thank you. Don't get me wrong, we get all the same benefits that you do from custom roms (and generally, more developer support as well). But, our stock roms are so good, there's less of a need for root.

On my HTC Incredible, I was so anal about removing Verizon bloatware that I actually became a ROM developer and released my own work on XDA, With my SGS2 i9100, I haven't yet had a need or desire to even root.
 
I am about to drop T-mobile. They sold me a HD2 (that I still use) and over the last few months they have been blocking tethering even though my plan supports it. I am going to call them tomorrow when I get home and spell it out for them as I refuse to pay $15/mo for something my phone could do when I got it.

They keep doing crap like this and they are not going to be around much longer
 
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