Soon, the number of major wireless carriers in the United States will go from four to three. Sprint and T-Mobile have announced that they will be merging to form a new powerhouse. The merger will need to be approved by regulators and respective company shareholders.
The combined company will be called T-Mobile and be based out of Bellevue Washington. The company CEO will be John Legere, and COO will be Mike Sievert as well as the President. In terms of ownership splits, T-Mobile’s majority owner Duetsche Telekom will hold a 42 percent stake in the newly formed company, while Sprint majority owner Softbank will hold 27 percent. Sprint CEO Marcelo Calure and SoftBank CEO Masayaoshi Son will be sitting on the new company’s board.
Both companies said that by combining the two, they will be able to offer lower prices and take advantage of “greater economies of scale.” Both companies have consistently fallen behind industry leaders AT&T and Verizon. By merging together, both Sprint and T-Mobile will combine efforts to deploy their next-generation 5G network across the US.
Sprint holds the 800MHz and 2.5GHz bands, for example, while T-Mobile has 600MHz and 700MHz. Using combined efforts, you could see much better and more comprehensive coverage for consumers. There’s also no question that 5G’s gigabit-class bandwidth and low lag will help make it a more viable option for fixed internet access.
If US regulators clear this deal, everything should come to a close “no later than” sometime in the first half of 2019.
