SoftBank’s CEO has decided that owning one US carrier wasn’t enough. Today, news broke that Sprint was looking to buy out T-Mobile for $20 billion according to the Wall Street Journal. SoftBank purchased Sprint earlier this year for $21 billion. They also helped Sprint acquire Clearware this year too as T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telkom acquired Metro PCS.
…and then there were three carriers, maybe?
As gaming-changing of a move as that would be, most don’t believe that T-Mobile wants to be dissolved into another company anymore. After the deal with AT&T fell through last year, T-Mobile restructured themselves and have been on the up ever since. The pink carrier has actually sent some serious shockwaves through the mobile industry as of late. But as T-Mobile has been growing, Sprint has been shrinking and if things continue this way it’s only a matter of time before T-Mobile takes the #3 spot from Sprint. But if such an acquisition occurs, the combined amount subscribers would put them in 3rd place against AT&T and Verizon.
Besides the fact that T-Mobile more than likely doesn’t want this merger, the government will more than likely be against it as well. This is a substantial deal that would affect numerous Americans, very similar to the AT&T/T-Mobile deal from last year that the government nixed. There’s a lot of factors that go into a deal of this size and if it doesn’t go come to fruition it could put Sprint in a really bad place.
It will be interesting to see how this all shakes down over the next few months. If this deal goes through it would completely reshape the US wireless landscape. The government will be closely monitoring this deal. Even if both sides come to terms that doesn’t mean the government, in particular the Department of Justice, will let this go forward. I hope Sprint, and more importantly SoftBank, knows what they’re doing.
