“Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. have rekindled merger talks, people familiar with the matter said, as the wireless rivals explore a combination for the third time in four years,” Drew FitzGerald, Dana Mattioli, and Joe Flint report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The latest discussions come just five months after a previous courtship collapsed largely over who would control the combined firm,” FitzGerald, Mattioli, and Flint report. “The talks also come in the midst of an antitrust fight between the U.S. government and AT&T Inc.”
“The talks are complicated by the ownership of the two firms. Japanese telecom giant SoftBank Group Corp. owns nearly 85% of Sprint,” FitzGerald, Mattioli, and Flint report. “Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG controls T-Mobile, which is the larger company both in terms of subscribers and market value.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Third time’s the charm?
IF this comes to pass, T-Mobile had better control Sprint as Sprint is the worst!
Not happy. Love our sweet [grandfathered] T-Mobile deal.
Well, Sprint better do something because their network basically sucks. As much as I hate to, I may have to go to Verizon. 90% of the time I see 3G or lower with Sprint.
and the march to duopoly continues unabated
Sprint would need to be subsumed by T-Mobile, which at least is a GSM-based cell provider. In the event of a merger, the new company emerging must stop requiring special Apple iPhone builds and get with the program that allows SIM switching of services.
I haven’t been this excited since K-Mart and Sears got jiggy with it.