Photo:  Bytemarks

Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA unit may be close to a deal to buy wireless spectrum from Clearwire Corp., two people familiar with the talks said.

T-Mobile USA is the only potential bidder and the sale of the spectrum could happen by the end of the first quarter, one of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are private. T-Mobile USA isn’t in a rush to buy spectrum and can demand a financially advantageous deal, which may happen in the near term, another person said.

T-Mobile, the fourth-largest mobile-phone operator in the U.S. after Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., accounts for about a quarter of the German company’s sales and has seen profit slide as it trailed rivals in building out a third-generation mobile network and missed out on being able to sell Apple Inc.’s iPhone. The company may fund the spectrum purchase with proceeds from the sale of its U.S. telecommunications towers, valued at $2 billion by analysts.

Clearwire has warned investors it’s short on cash, saying it would run out by mid-year ahead of a bond sale. In December, the company said it raised $1.325 billion in bonds and exchangeable notes. Its biggest investor, Sprint, which owns more than half of its shares, declined to participate in the bond offering.

4 February 2011: The international trade union movement is launching a global campaign to convince German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom to end anti-union discrimination and allow workers to join their union at its US subsidiary T-Mobile USA following a decision by the ITUC General Council in Brussels today. The move comes after repeated refusals by the German parent company to stop the anti-union campaign being waged by T-Mobile USA.

“We expect better from Deutsche Telekom,” said ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow. “With operations in some 50 countries, it has established union relations with much of its workforce. However, in the USA in particular, the company massively violates its responsibility to be neutral towards trade unions, and tries to keep unions out of its workplaces. We’re simply asking Deutsche Telekom to respect fundamental rights for all those who work for it around the world, in line with international legal standards.”

T-Mobile’s drive to stop its employees joining their unions has included engaging specialist union-busters in the US, and detailed evidence of its anti-union campaign were revealed last September in a special report published by Human Rights Watch. The report 130-page report “...details ways in which some European multinational firms have carried out aggressive campaigns to keep workers in the United States from organizing and bargaining, violating international standards and, often, US labor laws” according to the international human rights NGO.

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Rene Obermann tells CEO Humm to cut $1 billion in costs by 2014.

At the recent T-Mobile Investor Day, CEO Philipp Humm unveiled his Challenger Strategy to increase revenue by $3 billion for 2014 while cutting $1 billion in costs. The plan focuses largely on reducing the cost of customer service through increased use and reliance on automation which could lead to job cuts, said Humm.

Churn rate (customer turnover), which averages 2.3%, was a major focus of the CEO's presentation. A goal of 1.8% churn rate by next year was set, but it took Sprint Nextel two years to achieve a similar reduction. To meet this goal, a new approach of tying compensation to churn rate is going to be used. It is not clear whose compensation will be tied to churn rate, but increased pressure at the top to perform will, surely, be felt in the call centers.

This comes at a time when, even before this presentation, T-Mobile workers have been reporting ever increasing demands to sell on customer service calls. Without union representation, workers have no say in what will become an even more challenging work environment. 

So customers will have less human interaction and employees will be more stressed. This is the new direction of T-Mobile? We expect better!

Earlier this month we posted information on DT increasing its footprint in Eastern Europe.

PARIS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) is to pay Vivendi (VIV.PA) 1.25 billion euros to settle an 11-year dispute over ownership of Polish mobile phone operator PTC, in a boost to the German company's expansion plans in Eastern Europe.

For Vivendi, the deal provides a welcome cash infusion that could be used for acquisitions, such as buying out minority shareholders in its French mobile operator, SFR.

The settlement, which is subject to legal approval in Poland, ends more than 50 lawsuits filed in five countries during the epic fight between two of Europe's telecom giants for control of the promising Polish mobile operator.

The deal would see Vivendi renounce all ownership claims to PTC and Deutsche Telekom to take full control.

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Photo:  Krzysztof Dobrzanski

FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--Rene Obermann will head Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE.XE) until 2016 after the company's board Thursday renewed the chief executive's contract for a further five years.

Obermann, 47 years old, has been at the helm of Germany's incumbent telecom provider since 2006 and his current contract was due to expire on Oct. 31, 2011.

"Obermann will lead the company to even greater successes" and "he made an first-class job over the past years," Chairman Ulrich Lehner said in a statement.

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Click here for coverage in Wireless Week.

Photo:  Roger Schultz