Government Should Have Greenlighted Proposed Sprint Buy of T-Mobile, C Spire CEO Says
The federal government got things wrong when the Department of Justice and the FCC sent signals that effectively stopped a Sprint/T-Mobile merger dead its tracks, said C Spire CEO Hu Meena Wednesday at the last day of the Competitive Carriers Association’s annual meeting. Sprint and T-Mobile are both active members of CCA.
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A combined Sprint/T-Mobile would have offered smaller carriers the chance to partner with a company that isn’t a “Bell,” but with “enough scale, enough size, enough clout and we would have all been invited to participate in that,” Meena said. “It would have allowed us to bring true competition to the marketplace in the United States, as opposed to walking up to the FCC with a laundry list of items that we need to be competitive.” Meena said many small carriers already are working closely with Sprint.
Terry Addington, CEO of SI Wireless, said small carriers came away very encouraged when they met with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, majority owner of Sprint. “Masa energized us all” because he brought a vision of a “competitive footprint to the marketplace where we could all partner,” he said. “We lost something when the concept of marrying T-Mobile to Sprint went awry."
Addington said competitive carriers face an increasingly uphill battle just to survive, especially as Verizon and AT&T get stronger. “Just the fact that there’s still about 100 of us out there says that there’s a place” for small carriers, he said. “But it’s a tenuous hold especially given the nature of the duopoly that’s been created.” Small carriers won’t long survive with partnerships, he said. “It is a tough, tough, tough market, getting tougher everyday,” he said. But, he noted, for customers in the markets small carriers serve they often don’t have other options.
Competitive carriers need to “create a different playing field” than the one created by big carriers, said Rodney Dir, CEO of nTeleos Wireless. “It’s important for us to differentiate in a way where we kind of dictate and create what the value proposition is,” he said. “We don’t have interest at all in surviving,” Meena said. “We have interest in thriving and I think everyone in this room would agree with that."
Meena said C Spire still has not been able to deploy services in the 700 MHz spectrum the carrier bought in the 700 MHz auction. “We've been sitting on $200 million [worth] of spectrum since 2008,” he said. “It would be nice to use that spectrum.”
"Think about this,” Addington said, regarding Meena’s comments. “What a waste of a national resource.”
Small carriers will soon have access to additional 700 MHz handsets, following an order approved by the FCC last year requiring 700 MHz interoperability (http://fcc.us/1pPsJ3B), Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told CCA Wednesday. The lack of interoperable handsets has been a key reason small carriers say they aren’t deploying in the 700 MHz spectrum they bought in 2008.
Device interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band had been a top Clyburn priority before and during her acting chairmanship last year. T-Mobile is reportedly testing devices for the lower 700 MHz band, which could be ready by year-end, she said. Sprint is expected to have devices available next year. “Last year when the industry solution was announced, we did not anticipate seeing interoperable ... devices until the end of 2015,” Clyburn said. “These announcements by T-Mobile and Sprint are fantastic.”