
T-Mobile officially completes merger with Sprint, CEO John Legere steps down - finphil
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/t-mobile-officially-completes-merger-with-sprint-ceo-john-legere-steps-down-ahead-of-schedule/
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dougmwne
FYI, the coverage for the 2 networks will remain separate for now and will be
gradually merged into a single network over the next few years. T-mobile is
offering a $15/month 2GB prepaid plan as part of the sweetener to get
regulators to approve the merger and AT&T has followed suit with a competing
plan. Dish Network has been earmarked as the future 4th carrier for the USA
and will be getting access to spectrum as part of the merger deal.

In my own opinion this merger is a good thing. Sprint holds huge amounts of
spectrum but has absolutely failed to create a competitive network with it. It
was a misallocation of a precious natural resource.

~~~
jasondclinton
I think that the first-class Google Fi devices have shown a path where CDMA
and UMTS networks like Sprint and T-Mobiles can coexist on the same phone.
Basically, the phone uses geolocation and a database of signal strength to
determine which network to prefer in a particular location. It hangs up the
baseband on one network and switches to the other. (Disclaimer: work for
Google but not on the Android or Fi teams. Know nothing that isn't public.)

~~~
MrRadar
T-Mobile will be shutting down the Sprint CDMA, LTE, and 5G NR networks, and
the T-Mobile UMTS network will probably also be shut down around the same time
leaving just the T-Mobile LTE and 5G NR networks. While the Sprint network is
still running existing Sprint customers will have access to both the Sprint
network and (on a "roaming" basis) the T-Mobile network but T-Mobile customers
will not have access to the Sprint network.

~~~
kube-system
That's just business as usual for long-time Sprint customers. Many of them
have dealt through several network shutdowns already :D

Sprint is the world champion of picking the wrong wireless technology.

Think I have still have some iDEN and WiMAX devices in a drawer somewhere.

~~~
amluto
WiMAX might not have been wrong if Sprint hasn’t flubbed the launch. Sprint
had working WiMAX in many markets long before anyone had LTE, and there was a
decent portfolio of laptops and such that had working client support. But
Sprint never marketed it and wouldn’t sell it even if you knew about it unless
you had a billing address in one of the few tiny markets that had official
support. I would gladly have paid Sprint for their service if they would have
been willing to sell it to me.

It’s hard to recover one’s investment if you refuse to sell the product you
built.

~~~
rubyn00bie
WiMAX was a sweet idea but worked liked shit in reality... I know, I worked
for Clear at launch selling it. I couldn't even use it in my apartment 10
blocks away from a tower. We actually had to install a special tower, in our
store, because it got no signal either...

It was so frustrating to sell something and have it returned because they
didn't have service even though we said they did. Metal roof? That's no good.
Metal building? That's worse. Concrete? Sorry. Wood? Maybe... if you're not
blocked by a large metal or concrete building. Oh too many people joined and
now you don't get a reliable signal?

They refused to sell it to you because it wouldn't have worked.

It also fucked with certain satellite radio frequencies and other weird shit
you wouldn't expect.

WiMAX was a 10/10 idea, but a 0/10 everything else.

~~~
Fnoord
WiMAX also lacked backwards compatibility, which 4G had with 2/3G.

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samfisher83
Legere really turned around TMobile and changed the industry by getting rid of
contracts and doing better prices.

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ocdtrekkie
Legere repackaged contracts slightly and sold it as snake oil. For the vast
majority of customers, their contracts had the exact same impact. A two-year
payment plan (which is, you guessed it, a "contract") on the phone which
"immediately becomes due" if you cancel your plan is identical to the early
termination fee that had previously been offered by everyone else, just in a
slightly less bundled fashion.

If, like most people, you were buying a phone from your carrier, the cost at
early termination was near identical. Verizon's ETF already reduced each month
left on your phone's upgrade period, just like a phone payment plan would
have.

Legere's a Jobsian marketing genius, but only because he managed to sell
people the status quo as something new.

~~~
LeoPanthera
I don’t buy this. Unlimited data, free international roaming (with data!), and
you can bring your own phone to any plan.

T-Mobile was very different and I hope it stays that way.

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BoorishBears
Eh, for the longest time their "unlimited data" was a sham.

I was paying something like $50 for 2GB of high speed data, and "unlimited"
data.

Except after the 2GB it was literally unusable, no matter the time of day or
location. Even plain email would stop working, and webpages would never load.

A lot of unlimited plans will deprioritze you (slowing you down) after a
limit, but usually that limit is higher, and even when you are deprioritized,
it still remains useful most of the time.

-

You can downvote all you want, they were running this scam well after the era
of per MB overage fees.

In fact they’re still running this scam if you don’t manual switch to their
more expensive “One” plan.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
My family has remained on the Verizon data cap plans. They cost vastly less
than their newer "unlimited" brethren... and never slow down my data speeds.

If anything was a colossal travesty, it was Legere bringing "unlimited" data
back from the dead.

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1123581321
The capped data plans charge $15/GB for overages. They are expensive for
anyone who uses more than minimal data and forgets to stay on WiFi.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I use about a gig of data a month. I don't know why anyone should be using
much more than that. I don't stream video off wifi.

~~~
1123581321
That is unusual. The average cellular data use is 5-10GB for unlimited and
1.5-2 for limited plans. Both average 15-20GB for data+wifi so the limited
plan users are just being more careful about being connected.

I can’t say what people should do, but they use their phones to watch video,
do video chats, play games, upload and backup photos, etc.

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jshevek
I see a lot of love for Legere in this thread, but I remember him as the guy
who influenced his devout followers to attack the EFF just because the EFF
rightly criticized one of his moves.

Edit: The move being lying about throttling. His exact words were: "who the
fuck are you, anyway, EFF? ... Why are you stirring up so much trouble, and
who pays you?"

~~~
r00fus
And Steve Jobs had particular views that were also myopic. That doesn't mean
he wasn't a visionary and effective leader that made a difference.

Compared with his industry counterparts, Legere was a breath of fresh air.

~~~
no_wizard
And rightly, people should criticize Steve Jobs for those things. Being
"better than industry counterparts" doesn't excuse myopic behavior.

~~~
exergy
Yeah, what kind of criterion is that? "The best STD" and all that...

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dlbucci
Man, I shoulda jumped shipped last time I upgraded and taken advantage of some
deal some other carrier had for switching. Maybe that's the lesson for me:
always switch carriers when it's time to upgrade.

I appreciate what John Legere did to stir some competition in the carrier
space, so it's a bummer to see him go, and I have no doubt T-Mobile will
slowly rollback all its consumer-friendly changes (not that they've continued
to make many more in recent years).

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exhilaration
T-Mobile had some crazy good deals in October before the merger was approved.
I moved my 6 line family plan from Sprint to T-Mobile in anticipation of
prices rising and reduced competition post-merger. After comparing notes with
my friends, I'm paying the least per line for unlimited data and all the
goodies that come with T-Mobile's Magenta Plus plan.

~~~
omgwtfbyobbq
Yeah, TMO had some crazy good deals at the end of last year. I also switched
from Sprint to TMO after moving from Sprint's "free" plan to whatever their
normal (somewhat obscene) plan was for about a year.

On the TMO side, I got the buy 3 get 1 line for free Magenta promo, an insider
account code/discount, and a $200 visa card per line. I think I'm paying about
$112/month for four Magenta lines.

The thing is, I switched in the first place because TMO always shafted their
existing customers and gave new port-ins great deals, so switching to a "good"
Sprint deal allowed me to get a better deal going back to TMO.

I say "good" because it was $30+/month for 4 lines, but Sprint's network blows
and the price it reset to was just nuts.

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A4ET8a8uTh0
Eh, it is never good for a customer to have less real choices. I honestly
don't get why antitrust laws are not enforced these days at all.

For the record, I actually have T-Mobile and it is acceptable. I can't wait
for service to get worse as it inevitably does after such mergers.

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_-david-_
It can be good to have less choices if T-Mobile/Sprint can become more
competitive than they were separately. I am not sure if they are actually
going to become more competitive but there is a possibility.

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noahtallen
Sprint has competed by giving stuff away for free. My wife and I have free
(latest) iPhones and are on a plan that’s cheaper than anything their
competitors offer. Everything else about them is objectively worse (features,
reliability, service coverage). I definitely believe they would not be in
business much longer, which is why I’m excited about the merger.

If they had a chance of surviving in a meaningful, competitive way, then I’d
definitely disagree with a merger, but I’ve not seen a strong argument that
they would.

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pnathan
Bummer. I liked Legere's style, and T-Mobile works _reasonably_ well. Sprint
was a total disaster in my experience.

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nachteilig
I really hope they keep the prepaid "sim app" for iPhone. Godsend every time
I'm in America.

~~~
LeoPanthera
There are plenty of alternatives even if they don’t. I use Truphone, which
works globally.

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code4tee
Who’s going to teach us what to cook in our slow cookers now on the weekends?

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download13
It will be easier to nationalize one big conglomerate than a bunch of smaller
companies. Thanks for getting a jump on this!

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dzonga
funny thing, in 2012 Sprint wanted to acquire TMobile. Couldn't pass through
the DOJ. TMobile used the failed merger money to build their network. And now
the circle is complete, with TMobile, buying out Sprint.

~~~
ploxiln
It was AT&T that failed to acquire T-Mobile, and paid the penalty fee which
saved T-Mobile.

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antipaul
So what's next for Legere?

I thought it was he who was supposed to lead the merged Co...

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adultSwim
Tons of tech CEOs seem to be stepping down in recent months.

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juped
So who gets the NYSE:S symbol?

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ars
Why is he stepping down? Seems to me like he was the reason for the success of
T-Mobile.

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jtmcmc
It seems like he was just done - he's been CEO for a long time.

~~~
gowld
The new CEO Mike Sievert was hired by Legere in 2012 to be CMO then COO then
President. It's an orderly succession.

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icelancer
Yeah, this is the situation. Sievert has been groomed by Legere for this
position for years. And Legere will still be in touch with him regularly, as
he says on Twitter.

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mark-r
This bums me out a lot. I moved to T-Mobile specifically to get away from
Sprint.

~~~
SllX
The way I see it, T-Mobile is Daddy and Sprint is Mommy in this merger.
Theoretically, this merger should only be additive to existing T-Mobile
customers. Not to say there aren't ways this could go badly as well, but I'm
fine with the plan I have now, and I don't see any downsides to my service
provider increasing the spectrum available to them.

There are some concerns around reduced competition, but I'm thinking that
might not actually be a concern in the same few years it will take to gauge
how this merger actually shaped the market, e.g. StarLink. Even if something
like StarLink doesn't pan out, and Dish as a cellular provider turns out to be
dead in the water, having three carriers on almost entirely even ground
competing is probably better than having two strong carriers, one flashy but
still generally uncompetitive carrier and one dead fish carrier. Probably
better to not even bother trying to prop up Dish to be #4, but this is what
the regulators have decided to push for in their attempts to throw the right
levers and twist the right knobs to maintain "competition".

