Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Danville, CA, USA;
Programs: UA 1MM, WN CP, Marriott LT Plat, Hilton Gold, IC Plat
Posts: 17,929
As a longtime Sprint customer, not sure if this is good or bad.
On the plus side:
(1) Sprint is hemmoraging and clearly ripe for acquisition.
(2) T-Mo has the best CSRs and the GSM network would be a plus for international travel.
(3) I believe T-Mo Germany has a stake in T-MO USA so the company will be a survivor.
(4) Hopefully Sprint would get a better phone lineup if this happens.
(5) Ability to buy access to T-Mo hotspots would be big plus.
On the minus side:
(1) As noted above, CDMA and GSM are incompatible. So I don't know what that means for a merger. It is hard to imagine T-Mo writing off Sprint's backbone but it is hard to see what benefits will occur from efficiencies of scale if they continue to operate separately.
(2) Sprint has better price plans (particularly for those who negotiate through retentions) than any other carrier. T-Mo's are among the worst: nights/weekends begin at 9pm (I currently have 5pm), no free text msgs, no free high speed internet, etc. Plus less competition means prices go up.