Talks of MetroPCS acquisition renewed

MetroPCS would change forms in some way or another. Back in 2007 we thought they’d merge with Cricket and form a fuller national carrier. Those days seem to have passed, though. More recent reports surrounding MetroPCS involve them being acquired by a larger company. We already heard earlier this year that Sprint nearly acquired MetroPCS, and word is that they’re back in the hunt. But there are others at play, and that could cause some changes atop the wireless world. The Financial Times has a long write-up on the situation. The suitors are said to include T-Mobile, Sprint, and Dish Network. Again, it seems odd to see Sprint involved, given their earlier rejection of Metro. But Metro has gone a long way in building out its LTE network, and Sprint could benefit greatly from it as it rolls out its own LTE network. T-Mobile would benefit in the same way; the nation’s No. 4 carrier was slow to roll out LTE and could get a head start with a MetroPCS acquisition. That might appear unlikely, because T-Mobile itself sounds as though it wants to be acquired by a larger entity. There have been talks of the German company merging with Sprint, but as FT notes, “there are concerns about the strength of Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s balance sheets.” That leaves Dish, which has shown intentions to get into the wireless game. They own spectrum, so acquiring MetroPCS could propel their efforts and make it easier to expand to more markets. This might seem like the boy who cried wolf. We’ve heard about MetroPCS being acquired for years, but they’re still independent. At this point, given the size of Verizon and AT&T, it’s just a matter of time. I’d put my money on Dish, just because of the issues Sprint and T-Mobile face. I’d then put money on those to merging, leaving us with a Big Four of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint-Mobile, and Dish. ]]>

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5 Comments

  1. David Elliott Lewis on October 1, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    MetroPCS provides a number of valuable services for low income consumers. These include offering unlimited voice + text + data plans at very low monthly rates and also high speed 4G LTE data plans running on affordable Android handsets.
    Being bought out by a major cellular competitor would not be good for their consumers or for telecom competition in general. This should be opposed at any and every opportunity.
    We need more competition in this industry, not less. Industry consolation does not have to be an unstoppable and foregone conclusion.



  2. Southerner on October 1, 2012 at 9:46 pm

    Metro PCS & TMobile? Seriously? Two different technologies? Lemme see, has it been done before? Oh yeah, Sprint and Nextel. It was not an unqualified success.
    Are their LTE technologies even the same? Even if so, it would still cause problems unless they both worked overtime to get voice over LTE going.



  3. john on October 1, 2012 at 11:39 pm

    i agree with David Metro PCS has change the game more n more every year n trying to make it better for there consumer. I dont want metropcs to go any where…….



  4. Albert Browne, Jr. on October 2, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    I don’t think it’s a good idea. metroPCS is a unique value to it’s customer base on it’s own. I totally agree with David with having more, not less competition on this market is what’s needed. It’s an issue of not having enough money to do what they really want to do. I hope Metro never gets acquired but if they would, then I’d prefer to see that happen with Dish instead of the “other guys”.



  5. TomFromTexas on October 2, 2012 at 7:31 pm

    I also agree with David,in that MetroPCs
    is a FIRST,in NO Contract Unlimited Voice Talk Text &UNLIMITED Data on 4GLTE HIGH-SPEED Mobile Internet.They Have What the BIG BOYS “CANNOT DELIVER”!If They Stay In The Fight Long Enough,They Might just WIN THE WAR!!!!