Mobile and Sprint agree to merge

“Like other companies, T-Mobile and Sprint are confident the merger will be approved and they are special and shouldn’t be judged like other mergers”, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics LLC.

Comcast, the cable giant that finished buying NBCUniversal in 2013, offers customers wireless service by reselling access to Verizon’s network.

“I lost my confidence that moment”, Son said at an earnings presentation early previous year. The combination reduces the US wireless industry to three major competitors from four, ensuring heavy scrutiny from regulators. Berge Ayvazian, a senior analyst at Wireless 20/20, said Sprint has been offering retention deals to existing customers and suggested that Sprint customers should see which carrier offers the better deal before a merger closes.

The new company will be led by Legere as CEO, with T-Mobile chief operating officer Mike Sievert to retain his role.

The two companies – the third- and fourth-largest USA wireless carriers, respectively, behind Verizon and AT&T – have been trying to merge for years. There’s also the time when AT&T tried to snap up T-Mobile in 2011 and was denied because the government thought it would make the market less competitive.

Well ahead of the merger news, which was announced on Sunday, shares of the US -based telecom tower companies fell 4 percent on Friday, Reuters reported.

However, the deal is expected to attract regulatory scrutiny over its potential impact on customer prices.

“The best way to describe 5G is what color TV did to black and white TV”, Claure says.

Sprint dropped its bid for T-Mobile more than three years ago after running into concerns about wireless competition in the Obama administration. The deal is yet to get a green signal from the antitrust enforcers, though.

The deal announcement comes a day before both sides deliver closing arguments in the DOJ’s lawsuit aiming to block AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. Sprint has been aggressively trialing massive MIMO for years now, and Sprint CTO John Saw highlighted the company’s prowess during a conference call today. The consolidation of sales, service, marketing and back-office functions also will be time-consuming, given the sheer size of the two companies, S&P said. The two companies together employ about 80,000. In the memo, Legere promises employees that T-Mobile will still be T-Mobile, will still be magenta, will still be focused on customers, and will still have Legere at the helm.

But there is skepticism a union could avoid lay-offs.

Responding to the same report, however, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, however, mentioned the possibility of a merger between two of the major companies.

One promising sign for jobs: Post-merger, T-Mobile and Sprint plan to keep their respective headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. and Overland Park, KS. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom will own 42% of the combined company and control 69% of its voting rights.