We have been hearing the rumors that Sprint could be getting ready to announce their plans to acquire T-Mobile. This is hardly a secret as both companies have discussed such a possibility in the past, although it seems that regulators aren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect, which means that the deal could be dead even before it is officially announced.
That being said, if the deal does fall through, Dish Network’s Chairman, Charles Ergen, has announced that the company would consider bidding on T-Mobile. Ergen states that Dish does not have the cash that Sprint has, meaning that they would not stand a chance if they got into a bidding war. Instead, Ergen would rather sit by the sidelines and watch how this one plays out.
According to Ergen (via Bloomberg), “I wasn’t a very good poker player but when a bunch of drunken fools were throwing money around occasionally I was able to pick up the pot at the end of the day. My recommendation to our board would probably be let’s see what happens.”
One of the reasons regulators aren’t thrilled about the idea of Sprint buying T-Mobile is because they’re worried about competitiveness, which would also see the number of major carriers reduced to three. This was one of the reasons why regulators also opposed AT&T taking over T-Mobile a couple of years ago.
However it seems that the same regulators are more than happy if Dish were to acquire T-Mobile and become the nation’s fifth largest carrier. In fact the FCC has approved Dish’s request to use their spectrum as a conduit for cellular calls and data. Of course it remains to be seen if the T-Mobile/Sprint deal will even be announced, and if it goes through, but what do you guys think about Dish becoming your next carrier?