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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.

#251

Post by CodeWriter23 »

Aloha wrote: post #243
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> and Sprint Corp

Oh nothing. Move along, nothing to see here.

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

#252

Post by cyberax »

chris-smith wrote: post #236
cyberax wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The walls here are defined by physics. There's only so much spectrum to go around. You can't have more than 3-4 large cell phone operators working in the same area. Decoupling the radio part and forcing everyone to play as MVNOs is a way to work around this.

That sort of decoupling could be fascinating. IMO, the walls may be as much a function of economics as physics. Running a small number of powerful radios on low-frequency spectrum is a cost-effective way to cover large areas. Physics constrains how much of that can happen in the same area. But if networks are willing spend cash, they can get a ton of capacity by densely deploying high-frequency radios. Don't think we…

It won't help much. Radio waves start getting too much attenuation to be useful outside the LoS around 5GHz.

That's still not a lot of spectrum. And you need to share it with other consumers (WiFi).

Then you start getting into the practicalities. You'll need to spam EVERYTHING with your access points. Can you imagine dozens of different wireless providers installing access points on every floor of every building? It's just not going to happen.

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

#253

Post by chrisco255 »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #242
chrisco255 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For now. But this is where the tech is heading:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/att-ast-spacemobile-promise-true-...

https://www.starlink.com/business/direct-to-cell

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

#254

Post by ksec »

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 think folks forget how dire Sprint's straits were at the time, and this specific merger truly was the least of all evils.

Exactly. If you map out all the MNOs around the world in each and every country the trend is very clear where they merge to around 3 - 4 MNOs depending on population density. It is both economical and technical decision, I wouldn't even put it in the category of "least of all evils".

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

#255

Post by ElevenLathe »

hylaride wrote: post #250
ElevenLathe wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 earne…

Sorry, I thought we were just talking about what we were taking about. Have a good day.

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

#256

Post by shadowpho »

TallTales wrote: post #208
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…

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…

Why is T-Mobile the worst?

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

#257

Post by exabrial »

jahewson wrote: post #88
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.

“Let’s just abolish capitalism”. Seriously though, a world in which the government runs the economy and picks the winners is a bad one indeed.

That's exactly how it works right now actually. I'm proposing a rule where everyone is treated equally.

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

#258

Post by idontpost »

nradov wrote: post #170
idontpost wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making employees personally liable for business debts would wreck the US economy Letting employees loot the company for their own profit isn't any better.

Shareholders and lenders already have the necessary legal tools to prevent employee looting, if they choose to use them.

[dead]

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

#259

Post by bt3 »

therealcamino wrote: post #209
johnkpaul wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you recommend someone find one of these? Do they expire, or could I get one to cover years worth of travel? Thanks!

I've used the Airalo app to buy data-only eSims in multiple regions, and they have global ones also. I would guess it's not as cheap as you'd get if you waited to buy from local providers in arrival, but it's very convenient.

+1 to Airalo. The country specific ones are super cheap. $7 for 2GB or something like that?

I once did the 30-day Global one for I think $20 for 4GB or so. Worked all over Europe + Middle East. Was very impressed.

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