Sprint CEO Dan Hesse Thinks a Merger with T-Mobile Makes Sense

This is hardly going to come as any surprise that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has said that a merger with T-Mobile makes sense. Shock and surprise right? I think with the recent “article” (if one can cell it that) of T-Mobile’s demise next years we can all admit that the carrier needs to do something.

Competing against Verizon and AT&T for any carrier especially T-Mobile and Sprint is becoming increasingly difficult in light of their tremendous quarterly gains. A merger would place them right back into the game with a combined customer placing them squarely into third place, but by an amount significantly smaller than where both carriers are now. Of course, Rene Obermann, Deutsche Telekom’s CEO stated that no multi billion dollars would come to fruition this year, but 2011 isn’t that far off.

Click here for the remainder of this entry from the July 13, 2010 TMO blog.

Click here for a similar analysis in the July 13, 2010 entry in a New York Times blog.

Both blog entries are reacting to an article in the July 12, 2010, edition of the Financial Times, the gist of which is that 4G technology provides the technical basis for merger. Sprint is the largest shareholder of Clearwire, which now provides WiMaxx, an alternative 4G technology. Interestingly, Clearwire will also have the capability to offer LTE, the technology AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile will deploy as 4G. According to Hesse, the beauty of having a lot of spectrum is we have a lot of flexibility." Click here for the Financial Times article (free registration is required).