T-Mobile has taken to the web to reiterate its expectations for the proposed merger with the nation’s fourth-largest carrier Sprint and specifically how that will impact jobs and 5G, in a recently reported blog post from CEO John Legere. Importantly, the executive says that the $26 billion merger bid is edging closer to approval, with 16 of the 19 needed state utility commissions agreeing that the deal should move forward.
The company has also now had the opportunity to ‘sit down’ with officials from the FCC, DOJ, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, Mr. Legere continues and the outcome looks increasingly positive. That is, in part, because of steps taken by Sprint and T-Mobile at the end of 2018 to distance relations between Sprint parent-company SoftBank and particularly its ties to Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the executive says.
The US government has issued increasingly stark warnings claiming that Huawei represents a national security threat. Those claims have summarily been rebuked in their entirety by the world’s third-largest OEM and many of the US’s partners have indicated that whatever threat the company may pose will be easily circumvented.
Jobs, jobs, and more jobs… and 5G
Approval of the merger is still expected to go through in the first half of 2019 and the combined company’s ability to battle it out with competitors on 5G remains a central point of T-Mobile’s merger arguments. Job creation, including an untold number of jobs the company expects to be generated from the next-gen networking technology rollout, plays a key role too.
The company has also reasserted its claim that not only will its 5G rollout be faster and more comprehensive following a merger. It says it will be able to make its 5G more affordable, offering new services at even lower prices and bringing increased competition to the market. That should be good news for consumers since T-Mobile and Sprint disproportionately serve low-income families, compared to other providers.
The latest jobs figures reported by the company may be even more intriguing.
Previous estimates have indicated the combined company plans to offer as many as 1,000 new jobs per new T-Mobile Team of Experts (TEX) Customer Experience Center for a total of 5,600 workers by 2021 and a further 7,500 by 2024. Those are figures the company is maintaining in its latest reported expectations but it now says it plans to open as many as 600 new stores in that timeframe and that the jobs figures don’t take those locations into account, either.
T-Mobile’s CEO also asserts that those are ‘real’ job figures, meaning that they should represent the bare minimum of jobs added under the merger.
A dismissal of “opponents”
Alongside the decision to tout its expectations for a merger with Sprint, T-Mobile’s top executive also laid out a fairly scathing criticism of opponents to the merger. As noted above, there are plenty of concerns that the merger will actually decrease jobs and competition as well as possibly creating a new national security threat.
Mr. Legere has taken the opportunity to hit back at voices in opposition to the merger, saying that the company “hears” them but equating the backlash to white noise. The executive claims it’s difficult to even know who is behind the opposition and that it primarily stems from baseless ‘hidden agendas’ that are heavily-funded by unknown opponents “speaking from behind a mask.”
While many of the concerns are genuine and both should be and are being addressed, the CEO says, the carriers aren’t willing to let anything ‘stand in the way’ of the merger.