AT&T offers to sell assets to Sprint in bid to win T-Mobile deal approval

By on Sep 20, 2011 at 1:01 AM
Business September 20, 2011

AT&T has approached several U.S. wireless carriers offering to sell assets, spectrum and wireless subscribers in an effort to win the government’s blessing for its planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA, Bloomberg reported on Monday. MetroPCS, Leap Wireless, CenturyLink, Dish Network and Sprint were among the the companies approached in the private talks. AT&T’s move is no doubt a response to recent lawsuits that were filed by the Department of Justice and Sprint. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on August 31st in an attempt to block the merger, which it said would “remove a significant competitive force from the market.” Seven U.S. states also joined the DOJ’s suit last week. Sprint sued on September 6th and said the merger would “stifle innovation” in the U.S. wireless market. AT&T’s discussions to sell assets may not be enough to sway the Department of Justice in AT&T’s favor and the talks are still preliminary, Bloomberg said.

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  • Anonymous

    Playing lets make a deal.

    • Anonymous

      actually this is more like “We want to own GSM as a monopoly, so let’s sell the other competitor to one that can’t use it”. This is desperation at it’s finest and shows that ATT is screwed.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        You do realize Verizon Wireless and Sprint are both GSM companies, right?  It’s a standards organization, not a technology… Verizon has been a member for 2 years, and its other owner has been a member since 1986… and Sprint joined last year.  Not to mention all the smaller GSM companies throughout this huge nation… they all certainly add up to make AT&T anything but a monopoly… cuz mono, of course, means 1.  You should’ve invested your time in a clue, rather than posting.

      • JUST

        So this whole time i was walking around with a sprint phone thinking i was different cause it said it was CDMA????????????????

      • Anonymous

        What????? Please check your facts.

      • Anonymous

        Verizon and Sprint are NOT on GSM.  Their “world phones” have a GSM chip in them (and a sim card) so when you travel overseas you can still use your phone.  But make no mistake, they are completely different technologies and are not compatible with each other.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        Ok… I checked my facts.  I’m right.  Maybe you both should check your facts.  CDMA is the 2G and 3G **TECHNOLOGY** that Verizon and Sprint use.  Verizon uses a little something called LTE tho for 4G… which is a GSM standard, thus making it GSM.  Sprint joined the GSMA last year in preparation of releasing its own LTE network.  Therefore, Verizon and Sprint are both GSM companies.  Because again, it’s a STANDARDS group, NOT a technology.

        Since evidently I need to check my facts, here ya go, foolios:

        http://www.gsmworld DOT com/membership/4829_4846.htm
        http://www.gsmworld DOT com/membership/4829_6273.htm

        put in your own dots in there, and away you go… you’ll find that they’re both rapporteur members, meaning they are GSM companies that contribute to the overall ecosystem, they just don’t subscribe to every technology they’ve nominated as the standard for the previous generations.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        Add meske to the list of ill-informed individuals… GSM is not a technology, it’s a standard.  2G GSM is TDMA and GPRS.  3G GSM has gone from EDGE on the TDMA family tree to W-CDMA in an entirely different family tree and has been upgraded further to HSPA technologies.  4G GSM is LTE.  Everyone seems to be confusing a standard with a technology.  Did the upgrade require new antenna panels on those giant poles outside?  Did the upgrade require new radios inside your phone?  It’s a new technology then.  GSM hasn’t been “GSM” since 3G came around… Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp are both GSM companies, adhering to the newest standard the group has put out (which Sprint will announce shortly, and Verizon has the largest network of…).  Seriously… get a clue.

        I’m so sorry you’re scared that your 2G RAZR might only have one choice of national post-paid provider in the US… the rest of us have our eyes on the future instead of the past though.

      • BigMixxx

        good factoid there…still though, does not mean I can take out an verizon SIM card and slap in an AT&T one at it will work.  

      • Anonymous

        maybe you missed the part of “owning tmobile would not give sprint anything other than a complete pain in the ass”? Nothing to do with profitability, everything to do with an entirely diferent part of the *spectrum*. Whether owned by sprint or not, you wouldn’t simply be able to go “welp, I’m on sprint now” with a tmobile phone, nor vice versa.

        It’s not about the standards technology, which, guess what? Of course every cell company is part of LTE, but that means nothing, and is a focus on something that has absolutely zero to do with what I posted.

        You shouldn’t invested your time in posting something worthwhile, instead of distracting from the real issue.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        Not yet, BigMixx… but eventually as the technology matures, you should be able to.  You still can’t do that same feat when swapping T-Mo and AT&T phones with their different 3G bands.  And it may get even more complex than it is now with 4G at 700, 1500, AWS, 2.5/6… and possibly even 800 in the old iden area.  The very idea might become a relic of an old era as 2G networks are presumably shut down over the next decade.

      • InurMouth

        Can you show me one sprint phone that doesn’t use CDMA technology as it’s primary network. Yes some are world phones but are still primarily CDMA devices for sprint. HDMI is a standard…is it not based off of a set of particular technologies?

      • Anonymous

        Correct these fools just dont know 4G LTE is GSM technology LMFAO!!! boy i tell you people are so dam dumb on BGR all they know how to do is bash products and networks, now if its a at&t post you can bash away

      • CMC

        You’re just flat out wrong.  Do some reading, get at least a little educated before posting.  GSM, TDMA, and CDMA…all different from each other.  W-CDMA different than CDMA.  LTE is different all together and is the eventual evolution of GSM, however is a different concept all together.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        -CMC- Allllll right… I have done “some reading” which is why I know I’m right. GSM is an Association. 2G services standardized by this association were *branded* as GSM. GSM uses TDMA as its access scheme, Time Division means that the frequency is divided up into blocks of time and only certain logical channels are transmitted at certain times. CDMA is the other access scheme, using technologies named cdmaOne for 2G, and CDMA2000 1xEVDO for 3G, differing from TDMA by being multiple access, where spectrum is spread.

        W-CDMA *is* different than CDMA, yes, sort of. It’s a CDMA technology… that’s why it’s called Wideband CDMA. It is incompatible with cdmaOne and CDMA2000. It is also incompatible with GSM, which is why there’s different antennas and different radios required to access it. W-CDMA was chosen as a ***standard*** technology for GSM carriers to adopt as a migration path – it was actually invented by a company in Japan that didn’t even use GSM at all – and those GSM carriers were encouraged to use it across the same frequencies as 2G, allowing for an easier migration path.

        LTE is a totally different beast. It is not related to CDMA or TDMA (GSM) in any way. It actually has a lot more in common with a long-forgotten air interface technology, FDMA. Which is divided by frequency. LTE is the chosen upgrade path, again, by the GSM Association. With Verizon and Sprint deploying it, it makes them GSM companies — and they are members of the association. In the same way Verizon has developed a hand-off from LTE to eHRPD (CDMA2000), AT&T needed to develop a hand-off from LTE to HSPA and/or UMTS and/or TDMA. These are all unrelated technologies. AT&T and T-Mobile and others in Europe also had to do this with 3G technologies… that is, develop a hand-off from W-CDMA to TDMA. It is both costly and time-consuming, which is why many countries – including the US – don’t have national 3G networks…

        But yeah… I need to do some reading still.

  • Temars

    If att does not get the spectrum they need they are done

    • Anonymous

      okay. that’s why they’re offering the spectrum away. Cuz they need it so much. The only thing they want is GSM monopoly so they can own the unregulated broadband. They’ve stop investing in landlines and before they splurge on nextgen wireless broadband they want a secured monopoly. And how exactly are you going to convince customers to go to sprint when the tmo phones they have right now work perf well on ATT?

      What this is, is a ploy to get Sprint to bite. If they bite, they can use this to say, Sprint doesn’t want 4 competitors, they just want to hold us (ATT) over a fire while getting some graft for it.
      If Sprint doesn’t bite, ATT can say that Tmobile is so devalued that Sprint doesnt even want it. Cue white knight music.

      Unfortunately, they don’t realize that Tim Wu of the FCC is on top of the case. Come on, Warren Buffet, BUY tmobile.

      • Carmen

        Hey one of the richest men alive, buy a failing company to make me happy.  He buys healthy companies.

        T-Mobile phones won’t work PERFECTLY well on at&t because they use a different band of 3G. Granted, they will work perfectly on the GSM network, but that would stifle the speed that these Android smartphones on T-Mobile would be capable of.

      • Anonymous

        he buys undervalued, poorly managed companies. Tmobile could invest in Light squared and go LTE that way like what sprint is doing. There’s a huge r and d cycle sure, but tmobile is profitable as hell.

  • http://MobileGenius.wordpress.com JM

    If this merger was good for consumers they wouldn’t have to try so hard.

  • Anonymous

    Now let’s see if Sprint will be the noble knight and hold the line on the cockblock. Naw, Dan will turn AT&T out like a cheap hooker if he has the chance too.

  • Anonymous

    Sorry at&t, but this little snafu you’ve gotten yourself into has gone way beyond just Sprint.

  • GinaDee

    Reality is that Sprint wanted to gobble up T-Mobile the same way they gobbled up and destroyed Nextel but AT&T came in with more cash and Sprint shown us what happens when they get a case of sour grapes.  

    Sprint has spent so much money lobbying politicians and reigning in lawyers to stop this buyout it almost appears they have lost sight of their roots.  Sprint used to be innovative, creative and first to market with new ideas in the mobile space.  Sprint did this then even as a much tinier company than they are now with much less cash.  They used to have the best commercials and the best phones first.  

    Sprint is now just another large telecom corporation struggling to find their place in the worst economic conditions I’ve seen in my lifetime.  They lost sight, became too top heavy and now have to compete in the courtroom and public opinion arena instead.  

    I remember when Qwest was fighting Verizon to buy the assets of MCI.  Sprint played cool and thought Qwest was crazy for even attempting to battle against a company the size of Verizon.

    Sprint has had a perfect opportunity to capitalize on AT&T’s distraction and regain market share.  Instead they have blown millions fighting this buyout and I’m afraid they will come out of this extremely wounded and once again unfocused.  Why does Sprint’s board allow this completely incompetent management team to continue to exist?  They repeat the same bone-head mistakes over and over again.  Despite ever so modest net gains they are still extremely unprofitable in comparison to T-Mobile USA who is losing post paid customers yet continues to make a profit.  

    Despite a rash of negative press by the media and blogger anger I still believe AT&T will pull this buyout off with concessions.  The negative repercussions are too high now that DT has abandoned one of its most profitable entities in favor of receiving a large cash payment to pay down their Euro debt.  

    I don’t blame AT&T or DT directly.  I blame the system (FCC) for failing to timely auction off spectrum so companies like T-Mobile USA could readily bid on unused airwaves to build out their own LTE network.  

    • FormerSprintPCSemployee

      Agreed.  Finally someone said it.  

      Some people in our blogger communities are trying to paint Sprint as some form of savior of the consumer when in fact all they are trying to do is save their own ass.  Sprint doesn’t give a you know what about consumers or the spirit of competition.  Instead they are trying to preserve their status quo of performing badly but just good enough to keep the executive staff employed.  

      Sprint was the one who wanted to get rid of their landline division so they could focus on wireless.  This left them vulnerable to the giant Bells who control the wires that connect our country’s telecom infrastructure.  

      If Sprint was Smart they’d either hitch up with Comcast or Time Warner or maybe even back with Century Link to help them better battle the larger Bells.  

      • VerizonSucks

        Comcast just bought NBC Universal so I’m not sure if they are in a position to buy Sprint right now.  I think Time Warner Cable might be a better option.  Anyone but Verizon is fine by me.  

      • Anonymous

        oh yeah… time warner did so well with aol

  • Carmen

    I don’t know…I want at&t to be able to go through with the purchase of T-Mobile because I’m an at&t subscriber and I want them to have more spectrum.  Selfish, I guess, but it’ll be nice if it happens.

    I don’t see a marriage between T-Moble and Sprint working out too well either.  It’s hard enough for Sprint to manage their two distinct networks, iDEN and CDMA and adding GSM and UMTS to the mix would be really, really difficult.  They would have to quickly transition all of their users to one common network and work on freeing up some of their spectrum for use on an LTE implementation, probably in their 1700Mhz range currently being used for T-Mobile’s 3G.

    • Anonymous

      Explain how Verizon is doing just fine with their spectrum but AT&T is drowning? Verizon has no more, and probably less, than AT&T. You buy everything from AT&T.

      • Carmen

        I don’t know who has more or less, but AT&T has two networks to support and Verizon just has CDMA with EVDO built on top of it. I suppose that’s why AT&T needs more spectrum, but I’m not sure. AT&T phones will drop down to the GSM network when their UMTS network is unavailable, just like most Verizon phones used to drop down to AMPS before the government made them shut that network off.

      • Jeremiah

        You seem to forget Verizon’s 4G LTE. They’re the ones with their hands full with two completely incompatible networks to support. AT&T has different generations of the same GSM technology.

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        @Jeremiah – LTE uses a totally different frequency, and thus spectrum… AT&T has to share the same spectrum pool for it’s 2G network as it’s 3G network, which are two different technologies occupying different slices of shared spectrum.  GSM is not a technology, it’s a standard.  CDMA2000 1xEVDO is the same technology and occupies the same spectrum using the entire channel.  Thanks for playing.

      • Anonymous

        Verizon has two networks. CDMAONE/2000/EVDO revA and LTE, right? They’re not running out of spectrum from that.

        AT&T only has to support old-school GSM and the new 3G WCDMA. There’s no reason they can’t use their existing 700MHz licenses as well as slices of their 1900MHz GSM (or 850MHz, or their other stockpiled licenses) for LTE.

        This really has very little to do with their spectrum and more to do with AT&T’s lack of deployed towers.

        I’m guessing getting the licenses to plant a tower is the hardest so easiest to buy up ones that are already in the field, such as T-Mobile’s. Is it so hard for AT&T to lease T-mobile’s towers instead?

      • Bullet Tooth Tony

        AT&T has to run 2 networks on, literally, the same spectrum with 2G and 3G.  And they have more than 2x as many smartphones that consume voice and data both….

        Yes, Verizon has 2 networks… on 2 different chunks of spectrum – cdmaOne has long been sunsetted… and yes, they are running out of capacity.  In case you haven’t noticed, since the Alltel merger, voice quality has gone to shi+ and data speed is barely better than Sprint…. and Sprint is lucky to crack 10kbps downloads on EVDO on average.  With Verizon, people sacrifice quality for reliability… always been the case.  But now voice quality has gone from sounding digitized, to sounding downright robotic.
        Verizon is rushing out LTE fo a reason… not because they can, but because they simply have to.  They’re done with CDMA2000, it has reached its limit.  And LTE is already degrading at a fast pace, and less than 3% of devices are on that network where it’s available… it’s going to get ugly, quickly.  Maybe then, people will be willing to admit there’s a spectrum problem in this country and think rationally… it won’t take them long to find out… just let LTE sell through at a little faster pace… wait til they flip the switch on VoLTE in 2012 sometime…

      • Weywt

        Att has. Over 16million more smart phones that run voice and data at the same time. That hurts the network!!

    • Anonymous

      They have well over enough spectrum, they just don’t know
      how to use it correctly.

  • Anonymous

    Aint happening att…

  • dpeagle

    simply an act of desperation to avoid writing a huge check to tmobile

  • RH

    at&t just doesn’t want to pay the “it didn’t go through” fee to T-mobile LOL

  • ImaTmoFan

    To me this sounds like AT&T is giving up Reading Railroad and Pennsylvania Avenue to allow Houses on Park place and Boardwalk… might seem ok at first, until you land on one of those hotels then you’re Bankrupt….

  • Anonymous

    I smell desperation….WHAT A SHAME ASS T&T

  • CMC

    Selling assets still ELIMINATES a low-priced competitor from the market and brings forward the duopoly. 

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