Sprint/T-Mobile: Rumors and Speculation

A few months ago, Mr. Son of SoftBank, owner of Sprint, went before the US government to give his proposal on why he should be allowed to acquire T-Mobile.  He pointed out the fact that Americans pay considerably more for considerably less data than customers in other countries.  He then claimed that he wanted to initiate a price war with AT&T and Verizon, but that he needed a larger infrastructure to do so.  Whether or not he meant what he said, the word hit the news on the Internet that Deutsche Telekom, majority stakeholder of T-Mobile, said that they would agree to the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile.

Normally, I am totally against the idea of major IP's merging when it happens in an industry where there are so few of them, thereby giving us as consumers even fewer choices than we previously had.  However, I feel like I want to see this possible merger in a more positive light.  T-Mobile has been making some impressive growth since ditching their traditional contract plans in favor of a month-to-month setup.  Merging with Sprint could help both companies, and it certainly would not hurt those of us who are customers of MVNO Sprint re-sellers (I am a happy customer of Ting Wireless); having access to an even larger network than before, and only paying a fraction of the cost of the major carriers would be awesome.  On the other hand, it's entirely possible that, if the merger were allowed to happen, that contracts with MVNO's would be redrawn, not to mention the possibility that Mr. Son might not hold up his end of the bargain to start a price war.

I love the idea of competition between large companies, because that is when we, the consumers, win.  Cell phone plans cost entirely too much, and now Verizon and AT&T have initiated new plans that allow people to get a different phone before their contracts are up, but at an even greater cost; designed to take advantage of customers that do not read the fine print before handing over their cash, in my opinion.

So far, there is no official word on whether or not this deal will even happen, just that the T-Mobile majority stakeholders would be okay with it.  I will be waiting to see what happens next.