Tek-Bull

What Will Happen to T-Mobile if the AT&T Merge Fails?

Now that the department of Justice filed a suit against the merge between T-mobile and AT&T, it may not even get the chance to get off the ground. There is still a chance to complete the merge, but the chances are looking dim for both companies. So what will happen now? Well, it all depends on what direction T-Mobile wants to take their company. They have a couple of good routes, each with their own pros and cons.

For starters, T-Mobile could back to the way it was before, stand alone as a competitor against the big 4.

Pros: T-Mobile gets the $3 billion dollar payout from AT&T and some added spectrum. They haven’t said exactly what will come with the added spectrum, but they could try to make a LTE network out of it.

Cons: $3 billion is a very good break for T-Mobile, but is nothing near the $39 billion they were expecting if the merge went through. If T-Mobile went back to how it was before, it would go back to the way it was before losing money left and right.

The other thing they could do is see if Sprint would merge with their company.

This might be a risky maneuver for Sprint since they only have about $5 billion dollars to play with. In a March of 2012 they’ll have to pay $2.3 billions in debt, then they need to save up money to open up their new network project that’s going to run anywhere between $4 – $6 billion dollars in the next few years. So while this is a good move, it’s an extremely difficult move. Specially if they get sued by the government like AT&T did. Another big problem they will phase is merging their technologies together, T-Mobile uses GSM, while Sprint uses CDMA, the nightmares to merge both carriers could be enough to stir away any merge between the two. But if it happens:

Pros: We’ll have 3 Major competitors which could theoretically lower our prices. We would have the option of having 3 very strong companies, with 3 very different price ranges. Sprint/Mobile would be the third largest company and would offer the 3rd cheapest price in compare to Verizon and AT&T. We’ll also have a cheap alternative to a broad network (maybe)

Cons: While they may become a fairly big company if they merge together, Sprint has several things going on at once, they have LighSquared and Clearwire, adding T-Mobile would guarantee that they have a plate full. This could mean trouble for new customers trying to get into the new carrier. Another thing, trying to merge both mobile technologies might be difficult, meaning we may have a lot of dropped calls while the technologies are merged. Sure, we’ll have a lot of overage for cheap, but dropped calls may stir people away at first.

Sell it To Google

Google already bought the manufacturing part of Motorola earlier this year, so theoretically speaking all they need now is have a cellphone network to go with their new company. This would put Google at the top of almost every other company in the US.  They could make the network “open” similar to their Android System so other people can come in and improve on the service and incorporate better tools and services.

Pros: It would be backed by Google, meaning that the service could be relatively cheap. Plus, they have several tools that could help you stay connected to the things that matter. They could incorporate their Google talk into the network to make cheap calls anywhere in the US straight from their phones without having to use your actual network’s minutes. Google could potentially increase the stability and profitability of the company.

Cons: Google isn’t very good with Customer Service, and they are to spread out, buying a network might be a good suitable option, but it could hurt the company at first, specially after their Motorola purchase.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft could come together and obtain the company.

About as likely as winning the lotto, but there is still a very slim possibility this could happen. The three main companies that are always fighting with each other in court could come together and buy it from DT they could organize something together so they could turn it into an open network. This could allow their users to make VoIP over their 3g connections.

Pros: It would be extremely cheap, there wouldn’t be a customer service that tries to sell you upgrades every time you call them, it would be backed up by the three riches companies int he world.

Cons: There will be constant down time due to the companies arguing with each other over control issues.

Lastly, which is probably the weirdest one of them all, sell it to facebook.

Facebook could finally jump into the mobile business they have been dying to get for some time. If facebook want’s to really come together as the “social” king that they are claiming, having the ability to let their users communicate with each other would put them MILES ahead of the game. They could integrate their system to be able to chat/text with all of their users and even video call other users on the go. They could charge a small fee for their service, and since they already own the Largest Social Network in the world, the customer base is tremendous.

Pros: it’s Facebook, they would instantly get a huge number of users. You could stay connected with all of your friends even when you don’t want to. Facebook could make the service very cheap, and the users would all go after it. It would be the first time anyone has ever created a %100 social network.

Cons: It would only be available in the USA at first. You wouldn’t have the ability to disconnect from your friends.