Report: Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Immediately Killed Wireless Price Competition In U.S.

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨BrikoX@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.zip⁩

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/05/16/report-sprint-t-mobile-merger-immediately-killed-wireless-price-competition-in-u-s/

Before T-Mobile acquired Sprint, activists, consumer groups, and deal critics (including me) warned repeatedly that the telecom sector megadeal would result in layoffs, less competition, higher prices, and a lower quality product overall. The Trump FCC and DOJ very clearly didn’t care; they rubber stamped the deal without even reading deal impact reports.

Report: …rewheel.fi/…/The_state_of_mobile_and_broadband_p…

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Makhno@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The merger is the only thing keeping both T-Mobile and Sprint afloat. Verizon, AT&T, etc. and congress killed price competition. Blame them, lol

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- NegativeInf@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Honestly, the government should assume ownership of towers and reclaim all spectrum licenses. There we go. All networks are now equal. No exclusive bands. Compete on price or perish.
  
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- cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Fr, I always remember seeing phrases along the lines of “T-Mobile, a distant third competitor” all the time and sprint was literally on the verge of bankruptcy. If you think sprint merging with T-Mobile was bad, just imagine what it would be like if they had just gone bankrupt and AT&T/Verizon swopped in and bought large chunks of them for pennies on the dollar.
  
  Remember, AT&T was against the deal and was part of a lawsuit to block it IIRC, so on that reason alone people should have supported the deal because any move AT&T figures is good for them is probably bad for people.
  
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  - kungen@feddit.nu ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep, the US went from a duopoly (if that), to a triopoly.
    
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- ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  T-mobile has been profitable every single year since 2013. Well before the merger.
  
  macrotrends.net/…/eps-earnings-per-share-diluted#….
  
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SoylentBlake@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I wonder if the FTC didn’t fight it because they knew this would happen - because of course it would, and now Lina Khan is just getting her margins right to hit both Tmob and Verizon with antitrust.

God I fucking hope so.

And slap Comcast and Cox fucking senseless while yr at it Lina. Please…? I’ll make you dinner everyday for like a month. If you could get fiber classified as a public utility I’ll be yr personal chef for a year. Who could say no to that?

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ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I was on t mo’s “top tier” magenta max plan.

Now, you can’t even get very good deals on a trade in phone with that plan because they created something else to phase out magenta max. I think the only benefit over magenta max is like 10GB more hotspot data. 50 instead of 40.

But you need that plan (which of course, is more expensive) if you want the same types of trade in deals you used to get on Max.

Neither which really affects me too much, because I haven’t gotten a phone through a carrier plan in like a decade. My 4 year old current phone isn’t going away any time soon, either. The last descent phone with a micro sd card slot. Note 20 Ultra.

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- cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Things started going downhill after Legere stepped down from CEO
  
  But yea, I’m not too affected by trade in deals either, but for different reasons. I just keep “jumping” every year lmao except for the phone I had prior to this one, it currently sits as my longest in use phone at 2.5 years and mostly just because I was committed to having a foldy for my next phone, but had to wait for the pixel fold to drop because I CANNOT stand Samshit phones in general, but also Samshits foldy offering is WAY too narrow lol
  
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