This is actually a topic we’ve been talking about for a few years now. But it really gained steam late last year when T-Mobile and MetroPCS announced they were merging. Then Sprint announced that Softbank would gain 70% share of their company. Both leaving out Dish Network who has been trying desperately to get into the wireless industry for quite some time now. We’ve also heard from T-Mobile (the nation’s fourth largest US carrier) that there’s only room for three carriers in the US. Definitely interesting words coming from the fourth largest carrier.
We’ve often pondered what it would be like for Sprint and T-Mobile to merge into one carrier. On one hand you have two networks that are really not that good. I know, T-Mobile’s network is much faster, but they have a lot of dead spots. Sprint may have more coverage, but their network is really slow. So maybe coming together could make it a better and faster network? Of course we would need to axe CDMA first.
The CFO of T-Mobile, Braxton Carter, spoke to Reuters today and said “It’s the logical ultimate combination,” speaking about a possible T-Mobile and Sprint merger. Carter didn’t say that the two companies are in talks, but it is pretty interesting hearing him think about it and what could happen.
Back in 2010, in the UK carriers T-Mobile and Orange merged and created Everything Everywhere or EE. Which was the first carrier to sport LTE, even though it was on a very high spectrum band, so it wasn’t all that fast and building penetration was pretty bad too. However, we could see something similar here in the US between Sprint and T-Mobile. Or we could just see a pretty messy situation for customers. Since T-Mobile is GSM and Sprint is still CDMA. The carriers plans are also quite different. While T-Mobile is undercutting everyone as best they can. Sprint is still trying to compete with AT&T and Verizon, while offering unlimited data.
What do you think about a T-Mobile and Sprint merger? Would it be good for both carriers? What about for Verizon and AT&T? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.