T-Mobile Officially Completes Merger With Sprint, CEO John Legere Steps Down

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: After months of regulatory maneuvering, T-Mobile and Sprint officially completed their $26 billion merger today. The new combined parent company is called T-Mobile and will now trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol TMUS with Sprint no longer trading on the NYSE. For consumers, it will seemingly take a little time before the effects of the transition are meaningfully felt. T-Mobile did not comment on the future of the Sprint brand in today's announcement, but they have previously promised that subscribers will have access to "the same or better rate plans" for three years as part of the deal.

Alongside news of the merger being finalized, T-Mobile shared that its CEO transition is taking place early. John Legere was supposed to stay on until the end of April, but Mike Sievert has been appointed CEO a month early, effective immediately. Sievert was previously T-Mobile's COO. Legere is still on the company's board of directors, but he'll be stepping down at the end of his term through June.

Sprint (Verizon) guy out of a job?

[Pascoea]

Does this mean that the "Can you hear me now" guy is officially out of a job again? Or will he be representing a 3rd carrier now?

Re:

[phalse phace]

Paul Marcarelli to T-Mobile: "Can you hire me now?"

This should make it easier for ATT & Verizon

[bobstreo]

to just buy up whomever is left.

I think I'm going to go with a by the gig data, unlimited phone and text for $14 a month.

Re:

[The New Guy 2.0]

There's going to be a 4th company from Dish Network that will cause the three surviving companies some competition.

Re:

[phalse phace]

The only incentive for people to switch to Dish from Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile would be if Dish significantly undercuts them and can offer a service with coverage that's just as good. That's going to be tough.

I expect a lot of those Boost Mobile customers Dish acquired from T-Mobile-Sprint merger to jump ship. I don't believe Dish will be able to build out their network quick enough before the 7 years that Dish has access to T-Mobile spectrum is up.

I'd like for Dish to prove me wrong though.

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

must install background ad app to use our network min usage 2.0 gb/mo per phone

Time will tell

[markdavis]

As a 6-year, very happy T-Mobile customer that left Sprint after many years of frustration (10+), I don't see how this will make me happy. Of course, it might be a good thing, if the new company operates like T-Mobile and isn't dragged into the "Sprint direction" in any way. Then it will be larger, perhaps stronger, and with more infrastructure.

Guess time will tell.

I think it's good

[SuperKendall]

I've also been with T-Mobile that long, it really looks like T-Mobile people are still in charge, they are just adding Sprint network capabilities.

So I'm pretty hopeful this means service improvements, especially outside major metro areas (or even in some major metro areas...).

Especially since the combined entity can work together to roll out 5G.

Re:

[ksw_92]

T-Mob is buying Sprint. Between the two they have low-, mid- and high-band licenses and should be in a much better position than VZW and the Death Star to provide 5G or whatever. T-Mob takes control so it mean that suffering Sprint customers will eventually get relief and T-Mob customers in the mid-band areas will get better data service.

The best part of this is that they gave the finger to the California PUC yesterday, basically telling them (the last entity that claimed a need to approve the merger) that

Re:

[Rob Y.]

Does this mean that all T-Mobile sold phones will support both networks? Probably not all of the ones they sell today do...

Re:

[Solandri]

Sprint was using a lower frequency band for 5G [phonearena.com]. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are all using higher frequency bands. The higher frequencies yield higher speeds, but much smaller coverage. The lower frequencies yield lower speeds, but a large coverage area. Done right, the new T-Mobile/Sprint is in the best position to offer comprehensive 5G service (high speed in dense urban centers, lower but faster than 4G speeds elsewhere).

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[WarlockD]

Isn't Sprint still using CDMA? I mean there isn't a big difference now that the all in one radio chips support both in one headset. But still, you have to provision two seperate networks for it to work. Hell I am not sure those chips support using CDMA and GSM at the same time either.

Re:

[billybaroohoo]

Sprint's real worth is in their mid-range spectrum holdings and their business sales relationships. Your coverage will only get better.

So the origin in a railroad finally gone from name

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Sprint started as the Southern Pacific Railroad making extra bux by partnering with a phone company to make money off the network they set up for their internal communication and signaling - WAY back when competitive long distance carriers were first forming, in the days of MCI and the Carterphone decision.

The name was an acronym from that operation: Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications. At first it was a set of microwave hops, but when fiber optics became practical, burying it alongside their rails on their rights-of-way was also convenient.

So now the name finally gets retired.

Re:

[jfdavis668]

And the "T" in T-mobile comes from Deusche Telekom, who would mark their shops, phone booths (remember them?) and equipment with a big magenta T. Good to keep that going in the USA.

Will Google-Fi stop forcing me to use Sprint?

[nyet]

Google-Fi sucks in my area since TMo has a much stronger signal than Sprint, but GoogleFi insists on picking Sprint.

Yes, I'm using FiSwitch.

No, its useless because after 2 hours, Google switches me back to Sprint.

De-competition

[Tablizer]

Oligopolies getting oligopolier is rarely a good thing. Oligopolies are often at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys regardless of industry type.