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US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

arstechnica.com

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Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#11

Post by sjg007 »

gonehome wrote: post #5

To me this makes a lot more sense than the T-Mobile At&t merger that failed to go through. Sprint is a pretty dead brand and provider. They were actually giving away a year of free service without any obligation (you only had to pay $2 tax/fee) and people still would not switch to it. T-Mobile has pushed the other carriers to bring back unlimited plans and they've separated the phone cost from the plan itself (allowi…

I had the Sprint plan. I liked it. Hard for the average person to get on it though. You would have to pay full price for the phone and then activate it (while switching your old phone number over) and you couldn't do that in store. If you bought say a new Apple phone at full price and wanted to finance it through Apple/Citizen One, Apple would make you activate first which if you chose Sprint would invalidate your BYOD plan. That was a mess to resolve. And it was even more painful if you had multiple lines. So you had to be pretty savvy to get onto that $0 plan... which means those that did are also savvy enough to switch to something else if they are price sensitive.

That being said I expect with the merger that prices will go up. Maybe we could get some MVNO deregulation or something.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#12

Post by sjg007 »

rayiner wrote: post #10

Why do people think Sprint is so bad, and what does that say about our cellular market? It looks like I can get 5 lines for $150/month, with a 50GB soft-cap and 50GB of hotspot. That's less than half of what I pay for Verizon. Such a lower-cost alternative should be able to attract customers in droves. Why can't Sprint?

Coverage mostly and Verizon has better spectrum.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#13

Post by misterprime »

rayiner wrote: post #10

Why do people think Sprint is so bad, and what does that say about our cellular market? It looks like I can get 5 lines for $150/month, with a 50GB soft-cap and 50GB of hotspot. That's less than half of what I pay for Verizon. Such a lower-cost alternative should be able to attract customers in droves. Why can't Sprint?

The US is huge. It's hard to cover with mobile phone and data service.

People fear their phones not working on road trips, or when they go visit a different part of town. Verizon and AT&T built trust that they will be good enough, and better than the others. T-Mobile did some great marketing with their 4G launch and follow up campaigns that built a lot of trust. T-Mobile's customer service is also extremely good.

The perception of Sprint is that it just might not be good enough. In fact, it is good enough. A colleague of mine has been using it for the three years I've known him without real issue.

Sprint's recent $25/mo unlimited deal got me to switch from my $70/mo T-Mo deal. I've lost mobile hotspot, but the savings are worth it for now and there's no commitment. I'm only out the $38ish activation fee (both ways) if I want to switch away from them.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#14

Post by Aloha »

gonehome wrote: post #5

To me this makes a lot more sense than the T-Mobile At&t merger that failed to go through. Sprint is a pretty dead brand and provider. They were actually giving away a year of free service without any obligation (you only had to pay $2 tax/fee) and people still would not switch to it. T-Mobile has pushed the other carriers to bring back unlimited plans and they've separated the phone cost from the plan itself (allowi…

Sprint has a pretty solid network in most markets, but they also have a metric crapton of debt.

What it comes down to, is there isnt enough spectrum to have three fully competitive carriers. The merger of T-Mo and Sprint will give them a huge leverage point on spectrum. T-Mo bring 600, AWS bands, as well as 1900 PCS blocks, Sprint brings 2.6, 900 and 1900 PCS blocks.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#15

Post by Aloha »

misterprime wrote: post #13
rayiner wrote: post #10

Why do people think Sprint is so bad, and what does that say about our cellular market? It looks like I can get 5 lines for $150/month, with a 50GB soft-cap and 50GB of hotspot. That's less than half of what I pay for Verizon. Such a lower-cost alternative should be able to attract customers in droves. Why can't Sprint?

The US is huge. It's hard to cover with mobile phone and data service. People fear their phones not working on road trips, or when they go visit a different part of town. Verizon and AT&T built trust that they will be good enough, and better than the others. T-Mobile did some great marketing with their 4G launch and follow up campaigns that built a lot of trust. T-Mobile's customer service is also extremely good. The…

Sprint has a really solid network in most metro areas. Both T-Mo and Sprint have huge issues with rural coverage, both have to leverage roaming partners to get real national coverages.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#16

Post by Aloha »

sjg007 wrote: post #12
rayiner wrote: post #10

Why do people think Sprint is so bad, and what does that say about our cellular market? It looks like I can get 5 lines for $150/month, with a 50GB soft-cap and 50GB of hotspot. That's less than half of what I pay for Verizon. Such a lower-cost alternative should be able to attract customers in droves. Why can't Sprint?

Coverage mostly and Verizon has better spectrum.

T-Mo supposedly ended up with a pile of 600 MHz spectrum, and sprint has a big pile of 2.6 gig spectrum (nee clearwire).

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#19

Post by kn0where »

Aloha wrote: post #15
misterprime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is huge. It's hard to cover with mobile phone and data service. People fear their phones not working on road trips, or when they go visit a different part of town. Verizon and AT&T built trust that they will be good enough, and better than the others. T-Mobile did some great marketing with their 4G launch and follow up campaigns that built a lot of trust. T-Mobile's customer service is also extremely good. The…

Sprint has a really solid network in most metro areas. Both T-Mo and Sprint have huge issues with rural coverage, both have to leverage roaming partners to get real national coverages.

T mobile has 600 MHz now (band 71) which has really helped in rural areas as long as you have a new phone.

Re: US government approves T-Mobile/Sprint merger

#20

Post by howard941 »

Aloha wrote: post #17
howard941 wrote: post #2

Awful decision. It won't cut consumer costs. Not even Bork would approve.

Considering I think the choice is Sprint going out of business, they are at risk of ceasing to be a 'going concern'.

What happened?? In 2018 they were near $2 EPS
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