Sprint is buying T-Mobile for $32 billion USD

[TopWargamer]

http://bgr.com/2014/06/04/sprint-t-mobile-merger-50-billion-dollars/

http://www.droid-life.com/2014/06/04/report-sprint-t-mobile-agree-on-price-for-acquisition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DroidLife+%28Droid+Life%29

Although Sprint and T-Mobile are facing some steep regulatory hurdles, the two companies are apparently going to try to go ahead with their merger anyway. The Wall Street Journal’s sources say that Sprint parent company SoftBank and T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom have agreed to a deal that will see SoftBank acquire a majority stake in T-Mobile for $40 per share in a deal worth $50 billion. T-Mobile’s shares closed trading Wednesday at $34.28 each while its market cap stood at $27.46 billion, so it looks like DT will be getting a nice premium from SoftBank in the deal, especially since the Journal’s sources say it would retain a 15% to 20% stake in T-Mobile even after the deal is complete. SoftBank has argued that it needs T-Mobile to build Sprint into a truly competitive wireless carrier, although its arguments have been greeted with skepticism by regulators so far.

UPDATE: The original WSJ report said that the merger would be worth $50 billion, but it has since changed its report and is now saying it will be worth $32 billion.

As a T-Mobile customer myself, I personally have mixed feelings about this. On one hand there's Sprint, who isn't really too great of a company while on the other hand this acquisition will provide more coverage, better coverage, more spectrum, more network bandwidth, and potentially faster network speeds. So I mean, it's not completely bad. I'd say that the goods outweigh the bads in this case.

Previous leaks have showed that John Legere will lead this new conglomerate of wireless carriers, and I hope that leak holds true.

There is one thing I am worried about: Sprint is a CDMA carrier while T-Mobile is a GSM carrier...

So...this transition will be interesting...

[ericlee30]

YAY, more coverage

[helping]

They will probably still support GSM as legacy, but new phones will carry over to CDMA as GSM is phased out.

also, yay worst everything

[CatCloud]

Suprise no one posted this, its been out for while now

[TopWargamer]

Sorry for your loss current T Mobile users.

How so? It's ultimately a good thing. Plus it's looking that John Legere will head up this conglomerate, so all of his good deeds and ideas should carry over.

[jer0me100]

I'm also a T-mobile user and worry that they might eventually do away with GSM, taking away the option of easily slipping a SIM card into unlocked phone, EX: Nexus 5,

[loganryan99]

http://bgr.com/2014/06/04/sprint-t-mobile-merger-50-billion-dollars/

http://www.droid-life.com/2014/06/04/report-sprint-t-mobile-agree-on-price-for-acquisition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DroidLife+%28Droid+Life%29

As a T-Mobile customer myself, I personally have mixed feelings about this. On one hand there's Sprint, who isn't really too great of a company while on the other hand this acquisition will provide more coverage, better coverage, more spectrum, more network bandwidth, and potentially faster network speeds. So I mean, it's not completely bad. I'd say that the goods outweigh the bads in this case.

Previous leaks have showed that John Legere will lead this new conglomerate of wireless carriers, and I hope that leak holds true.

There is one thing I am worried about: Sprint is a CDMA carrier while T-Mobile is a GSM carrier...

So...this transition will be interesting...

 

I also use T-Mobile, and if John Leger doesn't lead the new company I am going to cry.

[StingBull]

Because why have competition... I'm betting that in 10 years there will be only 2 carriers in the USA.

[TopWargamer]

I also use T-Mobile, and if John Leger doesn't lead the new company I am going to cry.

If John Legere isn't heading up the company, it's not the end of the world, but expect wireless carrier innovations to come much slower.

[TheNinjaNextDor]

Only $32 Billion? Come on Sprint, don't be so cheap.

[TopWargamer]

I was thinking more of the CDMA / GSM issue, but I'm sure that would be sorted out (hopefully...). Only real good thing I see out of this is wider coverage, but even that's not that good since Sprint's LTE networks and coverage are pretty awful

TMo actually has really good/fast LTE...when it's available.

[SirNumbers]

Yaayyyy! lol I have sprint spark and speeds upwards around 75 mbps in New York City. It can only get better now. Its funny cause my father has Tmobile.

[NInety]

Why so cheap?

[SirNumbers]

Also Tmobile Bought Metro PCS which was a sprint company, Until bought by tmobile. So would they getthem back?

[TopWargamer]

Also Tmobile Bought Metro PCS which was a sprint company, Until bought by tmobile. So would they getthem back?

I'm assuming so, because Metro is a part of TMo now.

[loganryan99]

If John Legere isn't heading up the company, it's not the end of the world, but expect wireless carrier innovations to come much slower.

 

exactly

[pit5000]

they better go GSM or i'll be pissed

[Xorbot]

Remember this: T-Mobile is worth less than twice Whatsapp "is".

[Imaginaerum]

Because why have competition... I'm betting that in 10 years there will be only 2 carriers in the USA.

I hope not, AT&T couldn't buy T-Mobile for that reason. I guess Sprint and T-Mobile are small(er) enough that the judges aren't worried about an oligopoly even though having only three carriers might be considered that anyway.

[TheSLSAMG]

[beebskadoo]

This is horrible, I'm thinking leaving T-Mobile now.

[Socky]

They will probably still support GSM as legacy, but new phones will carry over to CDMA as GSM is phased out.

also, yay worst everything

Oh god no CDMA sucks so much. I don't want to deal with an activation fee or go on Sprint.com and activate my phone, WHICH I still have to pay for. GSM supports LTE and CDMA does not support LTE

 

IMO GSM > CDMA

[beebskadoo]

Oh god no CDMA sucks so much. I don't want to deal with an activation fee or go on Sprint.com and activate my phone, WHICH I still have to pay for. GSM supports LTE and CDMA does not support LTE

IMO GSM > CDMA

as someone whose job is to deal with phone activations and service plans I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. Sprint not only has the worst customer service out of the 2, it also has the dumbest activation process. I hope they don't go with CDMA! GSM is so much better.

[Mooshi]

How so? It's ultimately a good thing. Plus it's looking that John Legere will head up this conglomerate, so all of his good deeds and ideas should carry over.

 

 

I'd laugh till tears come overflowing from my eyes, but this is too sad of news for T-mobile customers to laugh.

 

My old crappy 4G ISP got bought out by Sprint a year ago. Know what happened? It went from an overpriced internet service that gave 6mbps on the best day and sub dial up speeds on the worst to more overpriced, using crappier hardware and given a cell phone level of data cap of a few GB. At least before the buy out, data caps didn't exist. Family used to also use Sprint as their cell provider and on top of always being steps behind on the latest phone, their service was crap.

 

Sprint is on par with ATT in the this is a legit evil business. This isn't "ultimately a good thing", this is royally screwing over T-mobile customers.

[helping]

Oh god no CDMA sucks so much. I don't want to deal with an activation fee or go on Sprint.com and activate my phone, WHICH I still have to pay for. GSM supports LTE and CDMA does not support LTE

 

IMO GSM > CDMA

doesn't matter if it sucks

 

corporate america giggles at your hella cute complaints