“Deutsche Telekom may be forced into a tie-up of its sub-scale U.S. wireless unit with Sprint Nextel after a $39 billion deal with AT&T collapsed,” Maria Sheahan reports for Reuters.
“AT&T said on Monday it had dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA, bowing to fierce regulatory opposition and leaving both companies scrambling for alternatives,” Sheahan reports. “T-Mobile USA ‘is just crying out for a merger with Sprint. That’s the only long-term solution for Deutsche Telekom,’ Will Draper, head of telecoms research at Espirito Santo, said.”
Sheahan reports, “T-Mobile USA, a growth engine in its early days but now a run-down asset, is badly lacking in the spectrum it needs to build a network capable of handling the vast data volumes that U.S. consumers and businesses use on smartphones. Bleeding money and losing customers, it ranks fourth among U.S. carriers behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.”
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