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Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

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Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#91

Post by chimeracoder »

issafram wrote: post #77
hedora wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regulators could have forced the big four carriers (now three) into a common carrier model. In that setup, all cell providers would effectively be an MVNO, and the three (then, four) physical networks would be operated at arms length from the consumer facing side. Also, the four networks could be structured so that their financial incentives were to improve cell coverage and bandwidth instead of undermining each…

I mean Sprint was strictly CDMA, so that would be an issue on it's own.

> I mean Sprint was strictly CDMA, so that would be an issue on it's own.

How so? Sprint operated 4G LTE, which is a GSM technology (or alternatively, unified the two, depending on how you look at it).

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#92

Post by Benjammer »

TheAmazingRace wrote: post #5

I will say, I'm not terribly fond of mergers on principle. However, based on my insight as a former customer and shareholder of the company, Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked to a crisp. If this merger had not happened, I could have seen Sprint file for bankruptcy, with Verizon and AT&T picking the carcass clean. I think folks forget how dire Sprint's straits were at the time, and this specific merger truly w…

>Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked

The reason their goose was cooked is because they previously were planning to acquire T Mobile, but SoftBank got back-channel info that it would never be approved by the anti-trust regulators. At the time they had Marcelo Claure running Sprint, basically a corporate "fixer" guy for SoftBank. So he ran the company into the dirt in order to make the merge feasible to regulators (e.g. - Sprint purchased a 33% stake in Tidal, the music streaming service. Or how they entered a partnership with bankrupt RadioShack after it got scooped up by PE, and decided it was a good idea to take over all the physical RadioShack locations and turn them into Sprint stores).

"Oh, whatever shall we do, our company is failing, you MUST let us merge with one of our primary competitors or we'll go bankrupt. No company at all is worse for consumers than a merged company."

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#94

Post by blihp »

dehrmann wrote: post #70
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #2

Ah, yes, that's what did it, not the reunification of Ma Bell.

We're in a better spot then with the AT&T monopoly because there are three viable carriers almost everywhere. The Baby Bells were local monopolies, and you had to get long distance service from the national monopoly. I never understood how people see that as a win.

The point being made is that AT&T should have never been allowed to reform itself as it did, probably along with numerous other acquisitions/mergers that the government approved that they should not have. There was a period of time late in the last century when many of us had numerous (i.e. 5-6) options for a while.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#95

Post by jahewson »

voisin wrote: post #3

I’d love to see an economist tease apart the contribution of industry consolidation to inflation and wage suppression.

Several have! There’s no consensus on the relationship though. Some cases it does, some cases it doesn’t. Unions are a big factor.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#96

Post by nradov »

bogwog wrote: post #22
TheAmazingRace wrote: post #5

I will say, I'm not terribly fond of mergers on principle. However, based on my insight as a former customer and shareholder of the company, Sprint's goose was most definitely cooked to a crisp. If this merger had not happened, I could have seen Sprint file for bankruptcy, with Verizon and AT&T picking the carcass clean. I think folks forget how dire Sprint's straits were at the time, and this specific merger truly w…

I don't follow this industry at all, so I'm out of the loop. Are you saying Sprint could not have possibly reversed course? (E.g. through pricing or even new leadership) Sometimes when companies are trying to merge, executives from both sides will come out and say it's "necessary" and push the narrative that one or both will go bankrupt without the merger. In cases where that strategy doesn't work it, unsurprisingly,…

Sprint could not have possibly reversed course because they had already wasted too much capital on a failed WiMax network and couldn't afford to build a competitive nationwide 5G network. Their options for raising more capital weren't looking good. New leadership or a different pricing model wouldn't have changed that reality.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#97

Post by nradov »

lupire wrote: post #72
fooey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're paying out an excessive dividend that completely empties their cash reserves and makes operating the company unsustainable https://www.opb.org/article/2022/11/12/oregon-ag-files-court...

Corporate bankruptcy is a scam. Any merger on auction should acquire existing debts, and execs should be a lien against wealth and future income.

What a ridiculous proposal. Eliminating corporate bankruptcy and making employees personally liable for business debts would wreck the US economy. If debtors take a haircut then it's their own fault for lending in the first place; no one is forced to buy corporate bonds and vendors always have the option of requiring cash on delivery.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#98

Post by alistairSH »

ndiddy wrote: post #47
soylentcola wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't done that in a year and a half, but when I spent a few weeks out of the country it was a simple matter of buying a $30 prepaid SIM from a vending machine at the airport and having more data than I had time to use. Honestly, no contracts or carrier locks has always made it easier to deal with travel compared to friends who occasionally have issues just swapping SIMs.

Unfortunately, the increasing prevalence of eSIMs in new phones makes temporarily switching to a foreign carrier far more inconvenient than "just buy a SIM at a vending machine".

How so? I have my US number on an eSIM. If I went abroad, the hardware slot is available. Or, pretty sure I can just add a second eSIM, no?

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#99

Post by mikestew »

nceqs3 wrote: post #71
exabrial wrote: post #4

DOE needs to stop approving mergers and acquisitions over $150 mil or so. Every such merger: Facebook/Instagram, Google/Youtube, etc has been a disaster.

DOE? The Department of Energy?

Department of Education. https://www.ed.gov

I can only assume a typo in the comment.

Re: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Killed Wireless Price Competition in U.S.

#100

Post by zer00eyz »

mavelikara wrote: post #67
exabrial wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hope would be a vast increase in employers available rather than consolidation down to FAANG, increasing demand and driving salaries up.

> increasing demand and driving salaries up. Despite the demand, the revenue per employee for the company might be low, and those companies might not be able to pay high salaries to employees.

do you know how easy it is to get to a million bucks a year in revenue? Do you know how easy it is to have that pass 50% margin? 75?

If you know how to build a stack, and have a useful service finding people to pay 20 bucks a month for it is not that hard.

5000 users is a fairly low target...

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