DT Considering Selling T-Mobile USA to Sprint

[JMcEntegart]

Deutsche Telekom is considering spinning off T-Mobile USA into an independent company and selling to a third party. More interesting though, is who they could be selling to.

DT Considering Selling T-Mobile USA to Sprint : Read more

 

[Thunderfox]

Yay, less competition...

With only four major carriers, the last thing we need is for one of them to eat another, but I'm sure the government will allow it.

 

[tuch92]

I love t-mobile though. As long as they stay GSM I'm okay with it. I want to be able to switch out phones at anytime. Without T-mobile i'd only have At&t and Cincinnati Bell where I live.

 

[eddieroolz]

From what I hear, T-Mobile is a great carrier. Not sure how Sprint will deal with two standards, both with regional coverage though.

 

[scook9]

This is interesting since T-Mobile is GSM and Sprint is CDMA2000

 

[bhaberle]

Take it Sprint!!!! I want to get some sim cards up in this b#$%#$%! That way I am not stuck to just Sprint phones. =P

 

[unrealpinky]

Seriously? Did Sprint not learn its lesson when it bought Nextel? It doesn't make any sense to me that you would want to acquire yet another cellular standard. Yeah, good luck with that.

 

[Guest]

Lesser competition = Monopoly

 

[nekatreven]

Did everyone else miss this line?:

The deal, if it comes to fruition, would see Sprint merge with T-Mobile USA and Deutsche Telekom retain a majority stake in the resulting entity.

That is like me selling you my car and then telling you I get to drive it any time I want. If DT retains a majority stake in the resulting company then they aren't really selling T-Mobile...they're buying Sprint. Perhaps they are just spinning it this way because they want to keep the older Sprint brand in play.

 

[robochump]

[citation][nom]Thunderfox[/nom]Yay, less competition... With only four major carriers, the last thing we need is for one of them to eat another, but I'm sure the government will allow it.[/citation]

Most smaller cell service providers piggie back on the major service provider's network. They are cheaper because they do not have to bare the costs of the infrastructure. So it is unlikely there will be more than 4 major cell service providers.

 

[mikem_90]

[citation][nom]nekatreven[/nom]Did everyone else miss this line?:That is like me selling you my car and then telling you I get to drive it any time I want. If DT retains a majority stake in the resulting company then they aren't really selling T-Mobile...they're buying Sprint. Perhaps they are just spinning it this way because they want to keep the older Sprint brand in play.[/citation]


Not really, They keep a controlling interest in the Tmobile operation, not sprint. They would have to be paying Sprint money to get that. Sure they can do an exchange of shares, but I don't recall T-Mobile being big enough for its value to be a Controlling interest of someone like Sprint.

It sounds like DT just wants to be sure some previous agreements are compliant or some technology from Tmobile is not misused against them.

 

[TwoDigital]

@mikem - nekatreven's comment is accurate, actually. T-Mobile may not be big enough to buy Sprint, but DT sure is.

The article says that DT would maintain controlling interest in the RESULTING COMPANY which effectively means "controlling interest in Sprint + T-Mobile." In effect, they are looking to buy Sprint with a stock swap. They probably bill it as "Selling T-Mobile" as they would then use the Sprint brand name.