Worst of the Week: Do it! Do it! Do it!

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
Please. Please. Please.
Sprint please put in that offer for T-Mobile US.
Please.
For those unaware of the origin of this pleading, word came out late this week that Sprint (or more specifically Sprint owner Softbank; and even more specifically Softbank owner Masayoshi Son; and if you really want to get specific, Son’s credit cards) was set to put in the rumored offer to pick up Deutsche Telekom’s controlling interest in T-Mobile US for some crazy amount of money.
The deal would look to combine the nation’s No. 3 and No. 4 operators (Sprint and T-Mobile US, respectively … for now) into a larger No. 3 rival to the big two in Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility.
This scenario has been playing out for years, through various permutations, fits and starts, but those inside sources who in the past were apparently wrong when they said a deal was imminent, are now swearing that this time a deal is really imminent.
Did I mention: “please?”
I have already gone on record saying that this proposed deal is a no-brainer, especially for those of us with no brain. We just want to see some high-stakes shenanigans, regardless of how well – or not – it eventually turns out. (I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am still glad Sprint went and acquired Nextel. $35 billion!?!)
All of this comes the same week that the Federal Communications Commission, or one of the government bodies that will be in charge of analyzing the deal, came out with more rules for its upcoming 600 MHz incentive auction and updates to its spectrum screen that would seem to provide a serious barrier to the Sprint/T-Mobile US plan.
You know, the rules regarding the 600 MHz spectrum auction that T-Mobile US and Sprint begged the FCC to implement? Yes, those rules.
Like I said, this deal needs to be put in motion. It has been way too long since we have been treated to a cavalcade of this magnitude.

Let’s say that my pleading is indeed answered, that T-Mobile US shareholders approve the deal and that the two operators do merge their operations. Then what?
Then the real fun begins!
Son has said he would unleash a pricing war on its larger rivals the likes of which they haven’t seen since … oh, I don’t know … last month. (Because, nothing makes investors happier than driving down average revenues per user. Sure, T-Mobile US has been a darling over the past year by attracting boatloads of consumers due to its aggressive pricing moves, but those moves have also hit the carrier’s bottom line, which I believe is what investors really care about. Though that hit has been balanced out by all this Sprint news.)
Who will lead the new organization? Does Son really want Sprint’s current leadership in place – or what’s left of them – having seen what they have done to a once growing operator over the past several years? Sure, there were mounds of extenuating circumstances in play regarding Sprint’s ongoing issues, but there has to be some concerns as to whether that current management team can run the newly bolstered operations.
Does Son bring in T-Mobile US’ management, which has seemingly done quite a bit with limited resources over the past year to turn around operations following the malaise that set in following the failed $39 billion AT&T acquisition.
Maybe Son looks to have a mix of leadership, with both Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and T-Mobile US CEO John Legere trading off decision making week-to-week, or at least puts Legere in charge of the company’s Twitter account.
Then of course there is all the issues surrounding merging networks when it comes to Sprint’s CDMA/LTE and T-Mobile US’ GSM/LTE core; what to do about the respective prepaid brands (Boost, Virgin Mobile, Assurance, MetroPCS); and don’t even get me started on how this would impact upcoming auction plans. (Seriously, don’t get me started. The thought that there is any chance that this deal will remove one player from these proceedings has me on the brink of a serious Morrissey session.)

But, let’s not go there just yet. Let’s all get on the bandwagon and urge this deal on. Do it! Do it! Do it!
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–AT&T reportedly held a financial analyst meeting this week, where the company talked up how awesome it was and how all of its decisions were dead on.
According to analyst notes from the event, one funny bit of news – beyond the part about all of its decision being dead on – was how impressed AT&T’s management has been with the reduction in churn associated with the roll out of its Mobile Share Value plans and Next device financing models much sooner.
Not to question that sincerity, but I would think AT&T would also at least acknowledge that the Next move was simply a response to what T-Mobile US started with its JUMP device financing offer that kicked off the whole game of “Copy Cat.”
No? No props for the competition? Oh well.
–One more note from that AT&T meeting. The carrier also reportedly said that it was still waiting for voice over LTE quality to match that of current circuit-switched services before rolling VoLTE out on a broad scale.
That was an odd comment on several levels. First, AT&T announced last month that it planned to launch High Definition Voice services running across a VoLTE service in select markets across portions of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some noted that the rollout was set to begin by the end of June. Perhaps AT&T expects to have the voice quality issue licked in the coming weeks. If so, well done.
Next, there was a comment that there could be some call consistency issues when a user moves between an LTE and 3G connection during a session. That would seem to be a pretty big deal as people tend to not like having their voice calls dropped due to “better” technology. But, hey, those are some smart people over at AT&T and I am sure they will get it all figured out, right initial iPhone launch?
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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