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T-Mobile May Dial Up Sprint Acquisition


Defensive move would halt price competition on services

A weakened dollar and a sub-$7 share price combined to drive rumors of T-Mobile possibly buying troubled wireless provider Sprint-Nextel.

The white knight riding to Sprint's rescue may speak with a distinctly Teutonic accent.

Discussions of such a move made it into the views of Merrill Lynch analysts. They see such a move as possible in order to thwart a brewing price war for services, the Kansas City Star said.

Sprint recently announced a $99 per month price plan for unlimited voice and data services on their network. The price dramatically undercut rivals who have not matched the plan and face the prospect of heavy users fleeing to what could be a much better deal.

One wireless industry observer would prefer not to see a T-Mobile takeover of Sprint. Om Malik thinks everyone should just say no to this idea:

In theory it may seems like a wonderful idea. In reality, if this deal happens, than it is going to be worse than a Las Vegas wedding after a night long binge! The combined company will operate four different kind of networks - iDen, CDMA, WiMAX and GSM. Did these analysts forget that the iDEN-CDMA integration has been one of the major reasons for Sprint-Nextel’s troubles?

InformationWeek blogger Stephen Wellman also sees problems for T-Mobile in this scenario, stemming from Sprint's "botched merger" with Nextel, as well as the network issues. T-Mobile's profitable business could become less so with Sprint in the mix.

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About the author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Follow me on Twitter, and you can reach me via email at dutter @ webpronews dot com. Why not Mixx this article while you're here?

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