Another day
another 64 billion dollar market consolidation.
Well at least this one has some entertainment value and I don’t refer to
the video content on Dish.
Two of the
most colorful players in the telecom industry get to make nice. If the deal proceeds, it will be interesting
to see how two difficult, others would say mercurial, players (Charlie Ergen of
Dish and John Legere of TMobile) mesh.
One should
have skepticism about the deal, not due to regulatory and antitrust
constraints. It seems that Mr. Ergen
hails from the John Malone school of negotiation where the deal doesn’t get
done unless and until every less unit of value gets squeezed out.
The big,
multi-billion dollar question for the deal in whether and how the massive
warehoused Dish spectrum can provide mobile, convergent services including
voice, video and smartphone apps. This
issue combines spectrum propagation questions with device issues.
How would
Dish spectrum compare with far lower frequencies used for current smartphone
services? Will major wireless handset
manufacturers support new product lines for use on Dish frequencies?
Stay tuned.
