Following a flurry of rumors, MetroPCS has come right out and confirmed that yes, they’re talking with Deutsche Telekom about merging with T-Mobile USA, but nothing definitive has been reached. Here’s their brief statement.
“MetroPCS today confirmed that it is in discussions with Deutsche Telekom regarding an agreement to combine T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS. There can be no assurances that any transaction will result from these discussions, and the Company does not intend to comment further unless and until an agreement is reached.”
So, a small regional carrier stands to get snatched up by the smallest of the major carriers. Annexing MetroPCS coverage and getting their customers would certainly help T-Mobile duke it out with Sprint for third place. It strikes me that it would be a bit of a pain switching over the MetroPCS network and device roster to be AWS-compatible, but on the other hand, it would give T-Mobile a much-needed dosage of LTE.
In any case, it’s still too early to take any of the ramifications too seriously, but there are still lots of entertaining hypothetical questions worth asking. Who would benefit most from this kind of acquisition, T-Mo customers, or MetroPCS? MetroPCS customers would have to deal with more traffic than they’re used to on their network, but there would be a much wider network available to them. Is this acquisition a good investment for T-Mobile?
Source: PR Newswire