There’s a new report out this evening claiming that when the two smaller national carriers merge, that’d be Sprint and T-Mobile, they’d be rebranded to SoftBank USA. Which is something many of us didn’t see coming. We all thought it’d be Sprint or T-Mobile, not an entirely new deal altogether. Well new to the US. Additionally, John Legere will be the CEO of the combined company, SoftBank USA. He is the current CEO of T-Mobile and has led the charge to bringing back T-Mobile into relativity. Dan Hesse, who is the current Sprint CEO would step down, but still be a part of SoftBank’s board of directors. So he’s really not going anywhere.
It’s also being reported that the pre-paid carriers, MetroPCS, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile would be combined into one structure. Which would be the Framily plan, which is a bit strange, and I’m guessing that SoftBank USA is getting ready to get rid of the Framily plan, or at least bring it to their prepaid carriers. Although, it’s still unclear what will happen with other MVNO’s like Ting.
Deutsche Telekom, who currently owns T-Mobile USA, is going to keep a 20% stake in the company. Part of the deal is the fact that Deutsche Telekom users will be able to roam on SoftBank’s networks. And SoftBank customers can roam on Deutsche Telekom’s networks in Europe. The deal is supposedly final, and we should see an announcement on Monday to make it official. This comes ahead of T-Mobile’s Uncarrier 5.0 event later this month, it’s still unlikely that it’ll be cancelled, but we’ll have to keep our eyes on it over the next few weeks.
Now it’s important to remember that this deal still needs to be approved by the FCC and Department of Justice. What are everyone’s thoughts on this proposed deal of SoftBank USA? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.