5 Guaranteed Future Outcomes from the Sprint-TMobile Lovefest—Part Two

            John Legere will serve as the new TMobile CEO, so the possibility exists that he’ll maintain the love of pink—make that magenta.   Of course, it will be harder for the new TMobile to frame itself as iconoclastic outlier.  Not much innovation in this tag line: “we’ve held the line on prices for THREE years.” Mr. Legere may continue to ride his TMobile motorcycle around town, but he’ll have lots of deposits to make at his bank.

            Over at Dish, the deal gives Charlie Ergen a 4-year extension to “fish or cut bait” with even more spectrum.  I’ll add to my prediction that he’ll devote an inordinate amount of that time raising a ruckus on the proper interpretation of his commitments as the fourth carrier replacement for Sprint.  Why spend time competing in the marketplace when you can complain about the plain meaning of the sweetheart deal he negotiated?  He’ll never be satisfied, particularly when he can blame everyone—including the other carriers—for any failure to meet the terms of the deal. 

Bear in mind that Dish’s quick entry into the marketplace will be through resale of the other carriers’ capacity. Mr. Ergen has a ready- made complaint that his competitors did not offer him generous enough terms for Dish to offer what Sprint previously did.

Bottom line: it’s money that matters, and the investment of millions by Sprint and TMobile will pay off handsomely at the expense of anyone who uses a cellphone.

5 Guaranteed Future Outcomes from the Sprint-TMobile Lovefest

Now that the U.S. Justice Department has planted a big kiss of approval on the combination of Sprint and TMobile, I predict 5 near term outcomes:

1) Charlie Ergen, CEO of Dish, gets yet another opportunity to find ways to evade regulator- imposed deadlines.  Facing a use or lose deadline for 5G spectrum, his company has received a lifeline from the Justice Department for further delay.  It does not take much to play the government and consumers for fools.

2)  John Legere, CEO of TMobile develops an aversion to pink and gets a haircut. You will never see him on a motorcycle again.

3)   The combined Sprint-TMobile finds ways to raise subscriber out of pocket rates, with new billing line items.

4) Somehow, some way, the robust 4th wireless carrier lacks most of the innovation, ambition and aggressive price cutting of Sprint or TMobile.  So much for re-creating a 4th carrier maverick.

5) Learning nothing about the consequences of airline, hospital, pharma and other industry consolidations, we are shocked at how U.S. wireless service rates exceed every country but Canada and Greece.