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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.

#241

Post by RF_Savage »

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #106
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…

The best way to resolve these issues is never "force the bad guys to do good things" but rather destroy the walls which enable their rent seeking. Regulators can work to make it extremely simple for new techs in this space to come up so there is real competition for ATT etc.

In USA the CBRS band allows running real LTE or better, real 5G SA on very lightly licensed spectrum.

All kinds of more experimental community networks make use of it. Even better, Magma core is a free 5G core and multiple vendors like Baicells make cheap 5G CBRS base station hardware. CBRS also fully overlaps international 3.5GHz 5G bands, so phones and modems are cheap.

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

#242

Post by inemesitaffia »

chrisco255 wrote: post #203
TheAmazingRace wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only other possible dark horse that could have emerged was either in US Cellular or Dish Network. However, I believe there were concerns with issues like market capitalization (in the case of US Cellular) or having different priorities (like Dish) that would have jeopardized a proper fourth option for the US. I'm not suggesting the merger was "good" or anything like that. Just that the other options seemed quite…

There is already a burgeoning dark horse competitor to the wireless companies: SpaceX. I believe within a few years Starlink will be a viable global wireless network.

They are using local partners

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

#243

Post by Aloha »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #231
Aloha wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qwest never owned Sprint.

Ok young'n In March 1998 Qwest announced it would acquire long-distance carrier LCI International Inc. for $4.4 billion. The deal created the fourth-largest long-distance carrier in the United States behind AT&T, MCI Worldcom, and Sprint Corp. The combined companies had about 5,800 employees and revenue of $2.3 billion. The acquisition gave Qwest 2 million long-distance customers and a well-established sales force.

Which has what to do with Sprint?

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

#244

Post by Aloha »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #226
TallTales wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former engineer at Sprint and I strongly disagree with this characterization. Sprint's goose was cooked but it was due to debt from selling junk bonds to build Network Vision at the time of the original LTE rollout. Their credit was ruined by that point from 30+ years of absolutely terrible and corrupt c-suite executives. Marcello has a lot of faults but he didn't run Sprint into the ground. He is actually pret…

Yeah, I always thought the two primary factors here were the lost bet on WiMax (which probably cost a lot to build infrastructure for) and the Nextel aqui-merger causing a lot more friction than synergy. I'd be a horrible businessman, because I really can't imagine keeping so much debt and simply being okay with it until its too late. I'd be considered a fool if I managed my personal finances like that, but that's th…

WiMAX was the answer for build 4G for cheap, and also how to use a bunch of spectrum that was not conventionally useful.

It did work quite well in practice, I can assure you.

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

#245

Post by andy800 »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #240
andy800 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's possible but it was a Sprint-branded device bought from Sprint that was clearly supposed to be compatible with its new 4G network. And they charged an extra $10 4G access fee every month! The other bonus was that being a CDMA device, there was no connectivity when traveling internationally, and no option to buy a local SIM card. Wifi only.

Why does that exclude international use?

Because just about every other country is on a GSM network, not CDMA.

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

#246

Post by zugi »

Data point: I'm on Sprint, now T-mobile, and my plan has stayed at exactly the same price in dollars for a decade, despite 30+% inflation over that time and the addition of 5G data.

Verizon has slightly better service in my area, but would cost me $20-30/month more.

I realize that's just one data point, but I'm not seeing any problems with pricing.

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

#247

Post by TheAmazingRace »

explorigin wrote: post #194
Benjammer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 regulator…

Let's not forget the amazing Palm Pre that was released 18 months too late. If it could have been released on time, it might have done much to save Sprint. But by the time it was released it was merely competitive instead of compelling.

Tell me about it. I bought my Palm Pre shortly after launch and, to this day, I can't think of another smartphone experience on the software end that was as good as webOS, save for Sailfish OS perhaps. If only Palm had been able to get their device on Verizon earlier, and perhaps started off with what the Pre 2 hardware was like.

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

#248

Post by 0xffff2 »

mikestew wrote: post #99
nceqs3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOE? The Department of Energy?

Department of Education. https://www.ed.gov I can only assume a typo in the comment.

Way off topic, but apparently Energy is the canonical "DOE". https://www.doe.gov redirects to https://www.energy.gov.

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

#249

Post by ElevenLathe »

hylaride wrote: post #190
ElevenLathe wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the merger was blocked and no one else wanted to buy it whole, then their assets would get sold off and the proceeds divied up by creditors (and if anything was left after that, to shareholders), same as any other company. Why is this an unthinkable scenario? There would have been some market-clearing price for the Sprint brand name and CDMA network (possibly separately, or even the network itself parted out) and…

The sprint shareholders already took a bath going from over $80/share in 2000 to $5. Hard bankruptcy and selling off its network would have been disruptive to their remaining customers, more complex/expensive to unwind (causing more of the money to go lawyers), and would still result in 1 less major carrier, resulting in essentially the same thing. The results would have most likely been most Sprint customers eventua…

I have to say I don't actually care or know very much about the merger, but the fact remains that there were other possible outcomes than the merger going through as it did. If regulators had blocked the merger, one of those would have happened instead. AFAICT there is no way to refute this argument. Possible futures at that point in time were are F_1 through F_n. If we had eliminated F_1, we would instead have F_2 through F_n. Maybe F_2 through F_n all entail a complete collapse of the US and world economy, or maybe they would have better outcomes. I don't know, but one of them WOULD have happened.

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

#250

Post by hylaride »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #249
hylaride wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sprint shareholders already took a bath going from over $80/share in 2000 to $5. Hard bankruptcy and selling off its network would have been disruptive to their remaining customers, more complex/expensive to unwind (causing more of the money to go lawyers), and would still result in 1 less major carrier, resulting in essentially the same thing. The results would have most likely been most Sprint customers eventua…

I have to say I don't actually care or know very much about the merger, but the fact remains that there were other possible outcomes than the merger going through as it did. If regulators had blocked the merger, one of those would have happened instead. AFAICT there is no way to refute this argument. Possible futures at that point in time were are F_1 through F_n. If we had eliminated F_1, we would instead have F_2 t…

Yes, obviously "something" else would have happened had regulators blocked the merger - I don't know why you're hyper-focusing on that. My point is that it would almost certainly have been an even worse outcome for everybody involved.

Unless you can show me how a cellular company that and backed itself into a technological dead end (and built up enormous debt during said process that sapped most of the money it earned to service) and needed quite possibly multi-tens of billions to even catch up to the others, you're not really adding to any conversation. If it was possible, business-people with more money and brains than either of us would have leapt at the opportunity.

The only alternative I can possibly think of is taxpayers ponying up - but that would in the end mean that consumers would "pay" indirectly, to say nothing of the moral hazard costs of government bailing out private businesses (works so well in the financial industry, doesn't it?).

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