T-Mobile Owner Deutsche Telekom Says It's Ready to Talk Merger Just a day after Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son reiterated his desire to acquire T-Mobile, T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom says the company is ready to start talking about a deal. Companies were prohibited from talking because of collusion rules affixed to the 600Mhz incentive auction, but those rules expired April 27. Now Deutsche Telekom is making it clear than a year of speculation is finally about to culminate in some major deal making.

While Sprint hasn't been subtle in making it clear that it sees T-Mobile as its best acquisition option, Deutsche Telekom is remaining a little more vague, and is leaving the door open to other suitors. "Purely theoretically, we can see several advantages to consolidation and convergence," Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Tim Hoettges said on the company's earnings call this week with the media and Wall Street analysts. T-Mobile's strong growth in the States not only means Sprint will have to pay significantly more than its 2014 offer (which was blocked by regulators for fear it would hamper competition), but Hoettges said this position of power means T-Mobile can take its time and be a little more picky when it comes to finding an M&A dance partner. And with Comcast and Charter recently striking a wireless deal that opens the door to a joint acquisition, a trifecta of the three companies is suddenly looking more plausible. "The strong position we have established for ourselves gives us the time and space to evaluate all options together with colleagues in the US," Hoettges said. T-Mobile customers remain notably skeptical of the benefits of a Sprint or Comcast merger, worried that either acquisition could stall T-Mobile's disruptive, more consumer friendly (assuming you ignore T-Mobile's T-Mobile customers remain notably skeptical of the benefits of a Sprint or Comcast merger, worried that either acquisition could stall T-Mobile's disruptive, more consumer friendly (assuming you ignore T-Mobile's opposition to net neutrality ) market behavior, or (given Charter and Comcast's problems in this area) make customer support notably worse.







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Most recommended from 38 comments

xrobertcmx

Premium Member

join:2001-06-18

White Plains, MD 23 recommendations xrobertcmx Premium Member Please no I would prefer to not see Sprint associated with T-Mobile in any fashion other than competitor. MrkFrnt

join:2000-11-26

Winston Salem, NC 22 recommendations MrkFrnt Member First Nextel now T-Mobile how many cell companies is Sprint going to merge with and subsequently destroy?

karpodiem

Hail to The Victors

Premium Member

join:2008-05-20

Troy, MI ·WOW Internet and..

·Comcast XFINITY

8 recommendations karpodiem Premium Member The value in Sprint is the spectrum it holds and the physical assets. Everything associated with billing/customer support/network operations will be ruled redundant. Sprint is over the moon if they think DT doesn't know this. Even some random guy on the internet understands this.



There is no structure that will appeal to Germans where they play second fiddle to anyone - trust me, I saw how Daimler/Chrysler merger went down in the late 90s, which was a supposed merger of 'equals'. Phatty

join:2000-05-10

Saint Louis, MO 4 recommendations Phatty Member Hopefully someone else swoops in. As a T-Mobile customer I don't think there is a benefit to Sprint and T-Mobile combining.



Sprint has the most to gain, so I will remain hopeful that it is a cable company that initiate the buy out.



Then again it probably doesn't really matter. T-Mobile has a way of making every new promotion slightly worse than the previous so I would expect it is only a matter of time for the whole 'uncarrier' thing to officially come to an end.

rsa0

join:2003-01-25

Birmingham, AL 4 recommendations rsa0 Member Best thing ever... If this happens, can you imagine what kind of God's gift is that for ATT / Verizon ? TMO will loose customers in droves ( well, Sprint by then ). thxultra

join:2015-04-14

Aurora, IL 4 recommendations thxultra Member Absolutly hate sprint if they buy T-Mobile I will have to switch to AT&T Sprint screws up everything they touch. Look at what they did to Nextel. Remember when they decided to go wimax instead of LTE and then they ran both wimax and lte for a while. Just a complete cluster of a company. Sprint's network is still a joke and you know they will not run t-mobile like it is now. Less competition is never good for consumers either.

Anon72ee6

@verizon.net 3 recommendations Anon72ee6 Anon You can tell their heart is in a different place... Like a girl who puts on a polite and cordial but unexcited demeanor for a guy she is uninterested in dating in order to be nice and get him to calm down the T-Mobile folks are seeing other companies, cable companies; the way legere insulted their mvnos like he wants to get bought out.And then maybe Neville Ray or Mike Seivert tried to do speculation damage control by talking about how they like the idea of getting Sprint customers on a higher quality network. That's the "synergy" they see. And right now they are talking in overcomplicated nonchalant language because their heart and money pockets know what they want but they can't say yet. I think they will soon though.

Eddy120876

join:2009-02-16

Bronx, NY 2 recommendations Eddy120876 Member DT can Suck it. When DT started to meddle T-mobile was a joke. Now that T-mobile is kicking the big two in the nads now DT wants sprint? Oh F%%k you DT go back to Europe and let Legere do what's right for us consumers. Like hell I would go back to sprint. We don't need less competition we need more. gtb

Premium Member

join:2016-05-16

NorCal 2 recommendations gtb Premium Member Fiduciary duty TMUS has a (legal) duty to consider what is in the best interest of their owners (stockholders), and that certainly includes potential offers of money. Whether there will be an offer on the table which is considered in DT's best interest is yet unknown (no offer is currently known to exist), but talk is not a deal (and while talk with so many bankers and lawyers and executives is not cheap, it is just a part of running a publicly traded business).

Packeteers

Premium Member

join:2005-06-18

Forest Hills, NY ·Verizon FiOS

·Charter

Asus RT-AC3100

(Software) Asuswrt-Merlin

2 recommendations Packeteers Premium Member Altice may bid

altice/cablevision (who recently changed gears from docsis3.1 to fiber)

will be shopping for their own wireless company to quadruple play

leaving sprint out in the cold to be distress sold for spectrum scraps. my guess is now that charter&comcast agreed on a wireless strategyaltice/cablevision (who recently changed gears from docsis3.1 to fiber)will be shopping for their own wireless company to quadruple playleaving sprint out in the cold to be distress sold for spectrum scraps.

Anon493db

@state.pa.us 2 recommendations Anon493db Anon How much will this ruin us? T-Mobile is currently more flexible in offering 4 lines (and how much data - 4 GB per) a "family plan" is setup at about the same cost as Sprint's current offering for 2 lines.



T-Mobile is more reasonable in leasing new devices and how often you can switch them than what the fine print of Sprint currently offers.



T-Mobile also in the fine print is far more generous in when it throttles and by how much when exceeding your monthly data limit whereas Sprint is more punishing.



For every area with T-Mobile that barely gets 2 bars of 4G LTE in my area but still works relatively well there is a Sprint guy waving his phone in the air with nadda.



I would be more excited by the news if it were T-Mobile wanting to take Sprint over and not the other way around. How much is this going to cause us to lose and suffer I wonder? I may have to switch from the "Uncarrier" once all this settles and I see what the end results are.