Dish Has Agreed To Buy Boost Mobile

Dish has reportedly struck a deal with T-Mobile, to divest some of its spectrum and Boost Mobile to the satellite provider Dish, in order for the Justice Department to approve of its merger with Sprint.

The Justice Department needs to sign off on this deal, before it can be approved and before the merger with Sprint can be approved. This report comes out of CNBC, who has a pretty good track record with telecommunications reports. 

The Justice Department still needs to decide on whether Dish would represent meaningful competition to T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T following the $26 billion merger between T-Mobile and Sprint.

Dish already has spectrum from different spectrum auctions over the past decade. If there is a company that could become a meaningful competitor to the existing wireless carriers, Dish would be the one in mind. T-Mobile and Sprint have already agreed to sell Boost Mobile to get this deal done, and the DOJ also wants it to sell some of its own spectrum.

T-Mobile wants to limit Dish's spectrum capacity to around 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom wants to limit any strategic Dish investor to 5 percent.

This to make sure that T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom aren't spending $26 billion to be left in the same spot they are in now. In distant third place behind the top two US carriers. The whole reason for the two to merge was to be able to better compete with top carriers, both of which are nearly three times the size of T-Mobile now. The combined T-Mobile and Sprint, would still be smaller than the top US carriers.

The Justice Department has a few things that it wants done before it can approve this merger between T-Mobile and Sprint. One major caveat is to make a fourth, viable, wireless carrier. Which would be the point of selling spectrum to Dish as well as selling Boost Mobile. 

Dish being the perfect buyer, giving it has spectrum that it needs to start deploying, before the FCC starts fining Dish and has been wanting to get into the wireless industry for many years.


Source: CNBC

Sprint, T-Mobile Rumored To Be In Final Stages Of Merger Deal... Yet Again

SoftBank which controls 80% of Sprint is expressing optimism about the prospect for mergers in the U.S. wireless carrier industry under President Trump.

The Obama administration was "quite tough on business," SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has been quoted saying. But now the "door is open" for potential deals he added.

Masayoshi Son failed in an attempt to merge Sprint with T-Mobile back in 2014 after the plan ran into regulatory hurdles. SoftBank paid $20.1 billion October 14th 2012 taking 70% control, on August 6th 2013 Softbank purchased another 2% raising their stakes to 80% ownership of Sprint and has struggled to turn the U.S. carrier around since.

Now, Masayoshi Son is ready to try again saying that while he is open to other options, T-Mobile remains his "first priority" for a merger with Sprint. T-Mobile CEO John Legere said earlier this year that the company was open to "various forms of consolidation."


Source: The Phone Ninja

Sprint... The Exclusive Wireless Carrier Of The Essential Phone

Andy Rubin’s new company Essential officially announced its first smartphone. The Essential Phone, and while the company was quick to point out that the handset is unlocked and that it will work on all four of the major wireless carriers in the United States there were still questions regarding an actual carrier launch.

As it turns out that the Essential Phone will have an exclusive carrier. Essential president Niccolo De Masi informed USA Today that Sprint will be the exclusive wireless carrier to host the Essential Phone. According to Masi Sprint is the “network of the future,” and that’s why the company chose to partner up with the Now Network.

It’s worth noting that Andy Rubin is a friend of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and that SoftBank owns 83% of Sprint itself so maybe the partnership isn’t all that surprising.

Sprint will carry the Essential Phone in its retail stores, the device itself won’t host any Sprint branding while the phone does work with all the carriers this gives Essential some marketing in United States outside of the traditional advertisements the company will be running.

Did you already reserve your Essential Phone?

Sprint, T-Mobile Rumored To Be Discussing Merger Details... Again

SoftBank which controls 80% of Sprint is expressing optimism about the prospect for mergers in the U.S. wireless carrier industry under President Trump.

The Obama administration was "quite tough on business," SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said Wednesday. But now the "door is open" for potential deals he added.

Masayoshi Son failed in an attempt to merge Sprint with T-Mobile back in 2014 after the plan ran into regulatory hurdles. SoftBank paid $20.1 billion October 14th 2012 taking 70% control, on August 6th 2013 Softbank purchased another 2% raising their stakes to 80% ownership of Sprint and has struggled to turn the U.S. carrier around since.

Now, Masayoshi Son is ready to try again saying that while he is open to other options, T-Mobile remains his "first priority" for a merger with Sprint. T-Mobile CEO John Legere said earlier this year that the company was open to "various forms of consolidation."


Source: CNN Money

Sprint Is Now Officially The Number Four Carrier In The US

T-Mobile CEO John Legere let some interesting information slip out during T-Mobile’s Uncannier announcement conference call via Periscope live stream. Last quarter, Legere said that T-Mobile gained 2.1 million net customers, bringing its total subscriber count to 58.9 million subscribers. Sprint currently has only around 57.1 million subscribers.

Legere predicted that T-Mobile would overtake Sprint by the end of 2014 and by most counts T-Mobile did. Sprint’s numbers have been inflated for a while now. It is said that Sprint counts pay as you go customers as active subscribers, even if they haven’t accessed the network in over 90 days. T-Mobile, and most of the rest of the industry stops counting inactive subscribers at the 90 day mark.

So T-Mobile has had more active users than Sprint for some time now, even though Sprint’s “official” numbers were higher.

Source: Wikipedia

Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son Confirms Interest In Buying T-Mobile

There have been rumors circulating for months regarding Sprint's interested in buying T-Mobile but nothing much has come of it. Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son has admitted that the company is interested in purchasing the T-Mobile. The statement came in a TV interview between Son and Charlie Rose.

Son said "We would like to make the deal happen, but there are steps and details that we have to work out." He went on to explain how the deal would allow the number three and number four major wireless carriers in the U.S. to come together and finally be a true competitor to Verizon and AT&T. However, the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have made it clear that such a deal would face quite a bit of regulatory scrutiny. 

Son believes it will allow Sprint to be competitive with Verizon and AT&T, but regulatory bodies would worry that having only 3 carriers of roughly the same size would decrease competition and hurt consumers. This is a reasonable worry especially after seeing the commotion T-Mobile has been making with its UNcarrier plans and how those changes have led to price wars throughout the industry. But, Son says that the deal would allow Sprint to push a faster network more aggressively and offer better prices to compete with the big two. 

Source: Wall Street Journal

Sprint Chairman Said To Meet With FCC Chief, Possible T-Mobile Deal

SoftBank CEO and Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son is meeting with the head of the Federal Communications Commission today in an attempt to convince the regulatory body that combining Sprint and T-Mobile would be good for the wireless industry. Last week, officials at the U.S. Department of Justice indicated to Son and Sprint CEO Dan Hesse that the agency would not look favorably on such a merger and it would face heavy scrutiny. Son is already holding high-level talks with Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company. The companies have not publicly announced plans to merge and are still hashing out details, such as a potential break-up fee, which management team would lead moving forward, and which brand would be preserved. Son intends to argue to the FCC that a combined T-Mobile/Sprint would be a stronger competitor to market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will also attend the meeting.


Source: WSJ

Sprint Executives Talk T-Mobile With Justice Department

Sprint's senior executives recently met with members of the U.S. Department of Justice to ascertain just how much opposition a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile might face. The meeting included Masayoshi Son, CEO of +SoftBankCorp, which holds a majority stake in Sprint, and Dan Hesse, CEO of +Sprint. Justice Department officials told Son and Hesse that such a deal would "face skepticism" from government regulators, according to people familiar with the details of the conversation. Regulators appear to favor the current competitive environment, which includes four national network operators, as opposed to three were Sprint and T-Mobile to combine. Sprint already has commitments from banks to finance the deal. SoftBank and +Deutsche Telekom, which owns 67% of +T-Mobile, have met to iron out the broad strokes of a merger/acquisition. Many details have yet to be finalized before an acquisition is formally proposed.


Source: Wall Street Journal

T-Mobile CEO "I Have A Couple Things To Say" In Regards To Deal With Sprint

Chief Executive John Legere said he wasn’t going to drool and decline to comment like the typical public company CEO when hit with a question about mergers and acquisitions.

“I have a couple things to say about it, actually,” he said.

A deal with Sprint would provide significant scale and capability, Legere said “the T-Mobile Uncarrier business, the people, the brand the attitude is here to stay. … I think what we’re doing in any scenario we will prevail.”

T-Mobile the fourth largest U.S. carrier, said this week it added 800,000 of the lucrative phone postpaid customers, bringing its total additions for the year to more than 2 million.

Overall, including prepaid customers and tablets, T-Mobile added 4.4 million customers in 2013, turning around years of losses.

Sprint, meanwhile lost more than 2 million customers in the first nine months of 2013, and executives are signaling there will be more bad news to come.

While some past acquisitions in the wireless industry have been done in large part to acquire spectrum, future deals should be driven by brands, Legere argued.

Sprint is a pile of spectrum waiting to be turned into a capability, Legere said. T-Mobile, on the other hand, is a change agent and a maverick, things the United States feels is extremely important, Legere said in a nod to language often used by antitrust officials.

T-Mobile chief financial officer Braxton Carter made a similar argument in an interview following the event. Who is the innovator in the industry? What is the brand that’s really shaking things up? Where is the momentum going? he asked. It’s inconceivable under any strategic scenario that you wouldn’t want to capitalize on that going forward.

The Justice Department, which has made clear its interest in keeping four national competitors, is expected to be a huge hurdle to a deal. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, in a meeting with analysts Tuesday, said antitrust officials are getting what they wanted when they shot down AT&T’s $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile two years ago.

I think they are beginning to see some of the things that they were hoping to see out of four, McAdam said "My guess is they are going to want to play that hand out".

Earlier this week, T-Mobile’s Carter seemed to toss out a possible solution, propping up a new competitor by doing a deal to let Dish Network use the carrier’s cellular network.

"Doing a deal would open up some other very interesting strategic opportunities", he said. By doing a hosting deal with another party you could effectively create another nationwide carrier. Again, that could be very pro-competitive in the U.S. marketplace".

In an interview Wednesday, Carter said “there are certainly regulatory overtones here”, but declined to elaborate on whether helping Dish offer wireless service would help a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile get past regulators.

T-Mobile might be onto something, the Justice Department stressed the need for four carriers as recently as this spring. Tom Wheeler, the new head of the Federal Communications Commission, which reviews telecom mergers, said last month that, the mobile business is today, with four carriers, a competitive business, and it’s important it stay that way.

Facilitating a new entrant could assuage such concerns. Regulatory experts in Washington say Sprint will need to do something more than just arguing that merging the Number three and Number four carriers will make for a stronger competitor to an industry dominated by AT&T and Verizon, and analysts including Jonathan Chaplin of New Street Research and Kevin Smithen of Macquarie have begun to argue that setting up a competitor will need to be part of a deal.

Chime in below, what is your take on a possible T-Mobile and Sprint merger?

SoftBank Gets Closer To Buying T-Mobile

SoftBank is said to be in the final stage of talks with Deutsche Telekom to purchase its T-Mobile shares. 

SoftBank was considering using some of the shares of Sprint that it owns, to purchase the T-Mobile shares it wants to buy. But Deutsche Telekom is said to be holding out for cash instead of stock, and that has led SoftBank to visit 5 major banks, seeking to borrow the $19 billion that it needs to complete a deal for T-Mobile.

A Sprint-T-Mobile combination would provide a much tougher challenge for the top two U.S.carriers, Verizon and AT&T.


Source: Reuters

Sprint Preparing To Bid On T-Mobile USA

Sprint is working toward a possible bid for rival T-Mobile US people familiar with the matter said, setting the stage for a giant telecom merger that if permitted by regulators would leave the U.S. wireless market dominated by three big companies.

Sprint is studying regulatory concerns and could launch a bid in the first half of next year, the people said. A deal could be worth more than $20 billion, depending on the size of any stake in T-Mobile that Sprint tries to buy.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Dish Reevaluates Attempt To Buy Sprint

Dish Networks today offered an update on its bid to acquire Sprint. According to Dish, Sprint's recent legal actions have caused Dish to reevaluate its plans moving forward. It will drop its proposed acquisition of Sprint and will instead concentrate on acquiring Clearwire. "While Dish continues to see strategic value in a merger with Sprint, the decisions made by Sprint to prematurely terminate our due diligence process and accept extreme deal protections in its revised agreement with SoftBank, among other things, have made it impracticable for Dish to submit a revised offer by the June 18th deadline imposed by Sprint. We will consider our options with respect to Sprint, and focus our efforts and resources on completing the Clearwire tender offer." Sprint filed a lawsuit against Dish on Monday seeking to block its bid to acquire Clearwire, calling the proposal illegal.


Source: Dish

Department Of Justice Clears Softbank-Sprint Merger

The SoftBank-Sprint merger is almost official. Despite the recent news that SoftBank has been in talks with DeutscheTelekom to set up a backup plan to purchase T-Mobile US if the deal with Sprint went south, it looks like this deal is going to go through. The Department of Justice has cleared the SoftBank-Sprint merger to continue. 

The DOJ had asked the FCC to hold off on making a decision, so the deal could be investigated, but everything is looking good. So, that means the only thing left is for the FCC to approve the merger of course, the competing bid from Dish could still cause problems with the deal. 

Source: FCC

SoftBank May Be Looking At T-Mobile If Sprint Deal Collapses

SoftBank might use T-Mobile USA as its back-up option should its attempt to acquire a 70% equity stake in Sprint fall through, reports Reuters. Citing unnamed sources, Reuters said that SoftBank has held discussions over the matter with Deutsche Telekom, which owns 74% of T-Mobile. One possible scenario would have SoftBank purchase the 74% owned by Deutsche Telekom, says Reuters' source. 

SoftBank is paying $20.1 billion for 70% of Sprint, but T-Mobile's market capitalization stands at about $15 billion. SoftBank's deal has already been approved by the SEC, DOJ, FBI, and DHS. It is still undergoing review at the Federal Communications Commission and faces a Sprint shareholder vote on June 12.

Sprint Improves Clearwire Bid, Says Its 'Best And Final Offer'

Sprint entered into an agreement to buy the remaining 50 percent of Clearwire that it doesn't already own for $2.97 per share, or around $2.2 billion. This morning Sprint announced that it's decided to up its bid to $3.40 per share, putting Clearwire at a value of $10.7 billion. Sprint says that this is its "best and final offer" for Clearwire and that it's bid is the "best strategic alternative" for Clearwire and its shareholders.

This improved Sprint bid bests the offer that Dish Network made for Clearwire in January 2013, which was set at $3.30 per share. While it remains to be seen which offer Clearwire will ultimately take, things definitely appear to be leaning in Sprint's favor. Not only does Sprint now have the higher bid, it also has the support of Clearwire's Special Committee and its board of directors. What's more, Sprint says that it's been told by Comcast, Intel and Bright House Networks that they all plan to vote their shares of Clearwire in favor of Sprint's merger. Those three companies own a total of approximately 26 percent of Clearwire.

Source: Sprint

Sprint Gets Approval From SoftBank To Negotiate With Dish

Nearly a month after Sprint was given the ok from SoftBank to speak to Dish and gain more details about its $25.5 billion offer for the Now Network, it appears that the discussions are going to escalate a bit. Sprint tonight announced that it's received a waiver from SoftBank to discuss "non-public information" with Dish and to hold negotiations regarding Dish's bid for Sprint, two things that Sprint was not allowed to do during its previous talks with Dish.

Sprint also reminds us in its announcement that, as part of the terms of its deal with SoftBank, it can end its agreement with the Japanese carrier in order to pursue a better offer. Sprint is quick to point out that it hasn't yet determined if Dish's offer is superior to SoftBank's, though. The No. 3 carrier also says that its board of directors still supports its existing deal with SoftBank.

Sprint originally entered into an agreement with SoftBank late in 2012 that, if completed, will see the Japanese carrier dropping $20.1 billion for a 70 percent stake in Sprint. Dish then surprised most everyone with its own $25.5 billion offer for Sprint in April 2013, and since then Sprint has been contemplating the bids while SoftBank and Dish exchange comments about whose offer is superior.

Exactly how this whole situation will play out is still a mystery, but SoftBank's bid for Sprint did recently get approval from the SEC, and Sprint's shareholders are now scheduled to vote on the offer on June 12. SoftBank also expects the deal to close on July 1. Meanwhile, Dish is still fighting for its offer, and the company has even put in a $2 billion offer for LightSquared's wireless spectrum that could increase the odds of its bid being selected. If you were Sprint, which offer would you choose?

Source: Sprint

Dish Network Seeks To Halt FCC Review Of Sprint-Softbank Deal

Dish Networks today filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission asking it to pause its review of Softbank's proposed equity acquisition of Sprint. Dish wants issues concerning its competitive bid for Clearwire to be resolved first. Last year, Softbank, Japan's second-largest wireless network operator, proposed to purchase a 70% stake in Sprint for about $20 billion. Hoping to simplify terms of the deal, Sprint later proposed to acquire the remainder of Clearwire, in which it already holds a majority stake, for $2.97 per share. Dish Networks threw a wrench into Sprint's plans by making its own bid for Clearwire last week, offering $3.30 per share. According to Dish, "With competing offers for Clearwire in place, premature Commission evaluation of Sprint’s initial offer could undermine the Commission’s policy objective of neutrality in takeover contests by giving SoftBank and Sprint a very real advantage in the corporate valuation process." Dish has been looking for a way to enter the wireless network market for years, and is hoping a deal with Clearwire could make that happen.

+Christopher Hamilton

Google Play Adds Carrier Billing For Music, Movies And Books

Don't feel like having media purchased through Google Play billed directly to your credit card? Well, now you can have those charges simply added to your monthly phone bill, provided you're on T-Mobile here in the US, or NTT Docomo, KDDI, or Softbank in Japan. According to Google's posting about the move, Sprint will soon be offering the option to pay for movies, books and movies purchased through Big G's market along side your voice and data plan. For T-Mobile subscribers that means both apps and content can simply be added to your tab, while AT&T is sticking with carrier billing for apps only at the moment. Conspicuously absent from the whole shebang, however, is Verizon, which has been one of the more prominent Android pushers here in the US.