The Court Let T-Mobile Buy Sprint Because Sprint Completely Sucks (theverge.com) 63
Nilay Patel, a lawyer and editor-in-chief of The Verge, on court's approval of T-Mobile and Sprint merger: The decision itself is extremely surprising: Judge Victor Marrero of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York basically decided that the various data and experts put forward by the 10 state attorneys general who sued to stop the merger weren't worth taking seriously and that he would decide for himself whether T-Mobile and Dish seemed like cool companies worth trusting. And... it turns out that Judge Marrero thinks CEO John Legere and the rest of T-Mobile's executives are extremely cool and smart and that Dish Network is definitely trustworthy and that everything is going to work out great. Also, the judge thinks that Sprint sucks. Really, if there's one major takeaway here, it's that Victor Marrero, a federal judge selected by Bill Clinton for a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary, thinks that Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies. This is the law now. Let's go through the decision.
All of this is correct (Score:5, Interesting)
T-Mobile is the only cell company I have actually been happy with, and a large part of that is because of its leadership. I actually follow the president of T-Moible on Twitter, what other phone company would that be true of? None.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, Sprint does suck. We all know the truth of this, just as the judge did.
So to replace the management of a suck company by one that is actually half decent to consumers, is a no-brainer - this is probably one of the few corporate mergers in history to actually improve things for the customer. The judge realize this and stoped the government from doing what it does best - attempting to keep life miserable for the subjects that live under it.
Re: All of this is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
This was the logic of Boeing and McDonnell Douglass merging. But its not like the managers of the crap company are all fired. They now are running Boeing into the ground.
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Re:Journalism! (Score:4, Funny)
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But its not like the managers of the crap company are all fired.
That is true, but if enough top level leadership is replaced things can be better. I have seen some mergers work to the better before.
The thing to watch will be to see if T-Mobiles features and prices remain stable - if that is true, while the network range expands it could be a really good merge.
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This was the logic of Boeing and McDonnell Douglass merging. But its not like the managers of the crap company are all fired. They now are running Boeing into the ground.
Well... certainly their planes anyway.
Re: All of this is correct (Score:5, Informative)
Well you really can't fault the judge's opinion of Sprint though. The only way I can see this going well is if all of Sprint's leadership is fired, including low level managers. Probably fire most regular Sprint rank and file as well. Sprint is valued by its shareholders at less than what its net assets are worth. SoftBank refuses to invest another dime on Sprint, so it's not likely that the company would even survive in some form even after it has been liquidated.
Believe me, having been a T-Mobile customer since 2013 after having run screaming away from Sprint after I was a customer of theirs for 10 years prior, I hate the idea of this merger. But the arguments about Sprint likely failing if this merger doesn't happen are probably true. I know first hand just how dogshit of a company Sprint really is.
On the other hand, there are some serious problems that could spring from this without even looking at the impact to the consumer:
- Dish probably won't succeed as a wireless carrier, either they're going to fail and just turn into a spectrum holdings troll, or they'll be bought out by some asshole cable company like Charter or Comcast, and will only serve areas within their cable footprint as an extension to their half-baked service that depends on WiFi provided by cable customers.
- Sprint has a crapload of debt from years of mismanagement that T-Mobile will now have to shoulder. Not only that, but removing the legacy CDMA2000 network is going to make that ill-fated Sprint-Nextel merger look cheap in comparison, and for the exact same reason (though admittedly, the bigger reasons why that merger was terrible was because most of the Nextel customers that Sprint acquired defected very quickly after realizing that a big pile of shit took over their mobile service.) I can almost guarantee that the combination of these two factors will result in reduced infrastructure investment.
TMobile just swallowed a fatberg, and that can't be good for it.
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Re: All of this is correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Shockingly, that's true.
When McD and Boeing merged, everyone expected the "Boeing culture" of engineering to take over. Instead, the McD culture of big management took over instead, and infested the place. It's why Boeing moved their HQ from Seattle to Chicago, which isolated the management away from the production line and engineers (who are always bringing up problems).
It's why there's a management problem at Boeing right now causing problems with the 737 MAX - when management was so much closer (and most managers were engineers in the old Boeing) things like this simply delayed the launch. Now it's glitz over engineering and the 737 MAX issues really go to show the decline and corners cut.
Boeing acquired McD to get at the lucrative military contracts primarily, but it's more like McD acquired Boeing using Boeing's own money in reality.
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Re:All of this is correct (Score:5, Informative)
why should any court get in the way of two companies merging or one buying another?
To ensure a functioning market with healthy competition. Monopolies / oligopolies run counter to that.
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No kidding, look no further than the sad state of this in Canada...
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Hey, we have some of the most profitable telecommunications companies in the world.
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Legere is stepping down this spring, though - at which point T-Mobile’s leadership will probably suck as badly as every other telco.
Re: All of this is correct (Score:2)
Prices are going to go up for all users of the now three major wireless companies. Less competition means less reason to innovate or keep prices low.
Now more competition, not less. (Score:1)
Prices are going to go up for all users of the now three major wireless companies. Less competition
WRONG.
The deal is, that T-Mobile and Sprint alone were not real completion for AT&T or Verizon.
With T-Mobile and Sprint together, they are actually powerful enough to drive prices down across the industry. Before Verizon/AT&T could keep the co-monopoly and ignore them.
Just think about it this way - lets say you decide to open your own phone company tomorrow. Is there REALLY more completion for Verizo
Re: Now more competition, not less. (Score:3)
I disagree with your contention that Sprint wasnâ(TM)t a competitor of Verizon, but letâ(TM)s roll with that for this example. I would contend that Sprint was a competitor for T-Mobile. Now that completion is gone, T-Mobile can raise their prices, and AT&T and Verizon will soon follow suit.
Re:Now more competition, not less. (Score:5, Insightful)
T-Mobile was doing just fine before, I like their current offering as do 77 million other customers. To claim that a service provider 77 million people have chosen is not viable without a merger just because Verizon has 118 million is absurd. The whole point of the acquisition is to enable T-Mobile to raise prices by ensuring they don't have any competition on the low end.
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Not that that logic has ever worked in the past, but sure, hey, why not try it one more time anyway.
Re:All of this is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, Nilay Patel seems to revel in taking what appear to be reasonable quotes and inventing the most ludicrous-sounding headlines/interpretations for them. I'll call this the "Hurr durr he's so stoopid" method of argument.
Overall, the judge's arguments seem to be that T-Mobile is innovative and well-managed (I agree), Sprint is not a great network (I agree), and the merger might allow T-Mobile to better compete with the two dominant carriers (I agree).
Now, I don't necessarily agree with ALL the judge's opinions or conclusions (especially some of the claims of the benefits of future technology), but maybe if Patel spent a bit more time constructing a reasonable argument against the core conclusions presented and less time mocking the judge, he'd be able to convince me that this merger is a bad idea. He did raise a few troublesome points, but they tended to get drowned out in the obnoxious presentation.
Re:All of this is correct (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how mergers work.
You have the a company that is under performing
You have the upward moving company that is exceeding all expectations
They Merge...
The under performing company failing policies are pushed on the upward moving company, causing that company to fail too.
Why is this?
1. The culture of the under performing company is often very rigid and difficult to move, while the other company has a more agile culture, so the agile culture will tend to bend around the rigid one.
2. The sudden increase in size of the company creates a lot of bureaucracy, politics and people positioning themselves for power plays.
3. There suddenly are lots of duplicate departments and works thus you get the layoffs. Which kills moral. These layoffs may often hit people who worked on the good company. (Often due to power plays and politics )
4. Bad policies and procedures from both companies are not often recognized as being bad, so they get promoted over the better ones.
5. High level officials become middle management. While they may not get a drop in pay, their jobs have became far more mundane.
I have gone threw about a half a dozen mergers and buyouts of companies in my career. There is always friction and problems, and not one happy family working together for the common good.
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You're happy with T-Mobile (Score:2)
Specifically they put a stop to over charges. Before T-Mobile, at least in America, your options were a Cricket phone with incredibly poor reception and quality or to pay upwards to $150/mo with strict limits on talk, text and data. And woe be unto thee that exceeds those limits. Pretty much everybody I knew h
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T-Mobile is largely responsible for the wireless industry trend of switching from 2 year contracts with $350 ETFs to the current model of having a customer sign a 2 year finance agreement for the full retail price of a phone. They also got sued over it (turns out it's misleading advertising to claim "no contract" when you're still having customers sign finance contracts).
Despite what their advertising spin may claim, T-Mobile also isn't the industry-disrupting force in lowing wireless service costs. Sprin
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Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sprint really IS a bad company with a crap network run by dummies.
However that alone should not be the reason to let the merger through.
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OK, here's a Sprint story:
My sister's family signed up for a family plan with Sprint, at a little over $200 a month.
Every month, on the moment the bill was generated, before it was even postmarked, Sprint would suspend all the phone service because the account had 'an excessive balance due'. Because the account had a not-late-at-all balance of over some amount. Not 3rd party bills, not long distance, late fees, etc. just the regular monthly minimum was enough to trigger it.
The 4th month in a row Sprint did
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Agreed.
I have Sprint and I like it (Score:1)
I sure as hell hope they don't start charging me more.
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I've had Sprint for ages. I switched to them because Pacific Telesis (which name is an indication of how long I've had Sprint) had absolutely crap coverage in the Silicon Valley area, not so much "dead spots" as huge swaths of no coverage.
Sprint coverage isn't the best in some parts of the country, but I haven't found it horrible.
I haven't had any serious complaints about the service I've had from them.
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Ditto. I switched to sprint because my previous service didn't work at all in my apartment and I was finally going to drop my land line. Sprint coverage has been excellent for all the places I frequent.
My previous service at&t/cingular/pacific whatever. They changed names so often I don't actually remember who it was.
The article title is 100% accurate. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Seriously, does anybody actually use Sprint? Ok, yes, a few do. Sprint is like the recumbent bicycle of carriers. A few people use them, and think they're great. But, the rest of us laugh at them as they pass by.
Bad technology choices? Not really! (Score:1)
Sprint Completely Sucks? My $0.02. (Score:2)
I've used Ting [ting.com] for my mobile phone for several years, since Sprint bought the spectrum from nTelos (originally PrimeCo) in my area (Virginia Beach). The underlying network provider for my CDMA/LTE phone is Sprint (Ting also uses, I believe, T-Mobile for GSM) and I've never had any problems locally or while traveling through Virginia.
Who makes law? (Score:2)
thinks that Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies. This is the law now
Judicial decisions declining to halt regulatory approval is not the making of law.
I mean... (Score:3)
"Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies"
As someone who's been on Sprint since around 2002, I can attest that they're not wrong in the least. Worst coverage, weakest signal, tech run by idiots, crap customer service...I hate to say it but it can only improve with the merger.
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I assume you were forced to use Sprint for 18 years... since you hated it so much ?
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Nope, stuck for work and don't want to have 2 cell phones.
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The one cool part of Sprint back in the 2000's was that they didn't force you into their ringtone/app store. They embraced the Palm phones. Verizon on the otherhand was very locked down. At least with AT&T (being GSM), one could import nice tech friendly phones like the Nokia Symbian
well, true (Score:2)
No, the court let T-Mobile buy Sprint (Score:3, Insightful)
Elections have consequences. One of those is a $200/mo cell phone bill.
The Judge is not wrong (Score:2)
WTF is this shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing Nilay Patel stuck with tech blogging^H^H^H journalism instead of law, because I doubt judges would tolerate that prissy snark from him in court.
You can't even read editorial opinion anymore, much less actual news, because Twitterization has turned everyone who writes for a living into an obnoxious attention whoring twat.
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Renegotiating Price too (Score:2)
Can Confirm (Score:4, Informative)
So, he doesn't like the judge's decision? (Score:2)
So bad in fact that I have been persuaded to accept the opp