Right now, you look at the major carriers in the U.S., and its Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Lump #3 and #4 together and the whole scene changes. That would create a carrier that's very close to AT&T's customer base. It could happen.According to a report from The Telegraph, Deutsche Telekom, the parents of T-Mobile, is mulling over a possible purchase of Sprint. Sprint is estimated to have a market value of $10 billion.
This news comes just days after Deutsche Telekom announced that its U.K. T-Mobile division will merge with France Telecom's Orange carrier. That will create the U.K.'s largest wireless carrier.
Verizon Wireless had an estimated 87.7 million subscribers as of July, while AT&T had approximatedly 78.2 million subscribers. Combined, T-Mobile and Sprint would be very close to AT&T's total.
Both T-Mobile and Sprint have struggled with churn, with many customers leaving. Both carriers have been hoping that new platforms and devices, such as webOS and Android, will help them in that vein.
A big problem with such a merger? Sprint has a CDMA network, and T-Mobile has a GSM network. T-Mobile has only recently begun rollout of 3G to its network, as well. Additionally, Sprint is betting on WiMax for 4G, while T-Mobile is betting on LTE, as are Verizon and AT&T.
Shareholders like the idea, as Sprint stock rose $0.38 to $4.15, over 10%. Analysts are not so keen on the idea, noting that because of the technology differences, integration of the companies would "hideously complicated."
0 comments:
Post a Comment