Hasta La Gadget!

Apparently the “significant issues” that stood in the way of a prospective T-Mobile and MetroPCS deal couldn’t have been too onerous. Just a day after acknowledging that talks were underway both boards have approved the deal according to the Wall Street Journal. Details of the deal haven’t been officially announced yet, but Financial Times Deutschland are reporting that the two carriers will be combined into a single unit in which Deutsche Telekom will hold 74 percent of shares. MetroPCS will have a 26 percent stake in the company and receive a $1.5 billion check for its troubles. Expectations are that this will put the kibosh on a recent deal T-Mobile struck with Crown Castle to lease its mobile towers for $2.4 billion. The new larger carrier will maintain the T-Mobile branding with new CEO John Legere at the helm, though, it appears the deal is structured as a reverse merger. Meaning that MetroPCS is in essence taking over T-Mobile and not the other way around.

Even with its combined subscriber base, the new T-Mobile will lag Sprint in the battle for AT&T and Verizon’s table scraps. However, it will finally give Deutsche Telekom the graceful exit from the US market that its been so desperately seeking for some time. This merger with a much smaller competitor is unlikely to raise the ire of regulators and will allow the German company to reduce its involvement and investment in a slow controlled manner by selling off stocks. We’re still awaiting official announcements from both companies and will update as the statements roll in.

Update: Official PR from T-Mobile and a video statement from CEO Legere are now waiting for you after the break. There’s a few new interesting details, including that MetroPCS’s CFO will be holding on to his position post merger. Interestingly, even though the carriers will become one company, for the foreseeable future they will maintain separate pools of customers. However, we wouldn’t be surprised to see that change as the LTE rollout accelerates and gives T-Mobile a true 4G offering. As Legere notes in the clip below, this is just the first step and the deal isn’t expected to close until sometime during the first half of 2013.

Update 2: As part of the strategy moving forward the new company plans to move customers off MetroPCS’ CDMA network and on to T-Mobile’s GSM frequencies for 3G service by 2015. The spectrum would then be repurposed to build out an LTE network.

Continue reading Deutsche Telekom and MetroPCS agree on $1.5 billion T-Mobile merger (updated)

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, T-Mobile

Deutsche Telekom and MetroPCS agree on $1.5 billion T-Mobile merger (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Reuters  |  Wall Street Journal (Twitter), Financial Times Deutschland, Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

T-Mobile’s just received a hefty cash boost thanks to a tower-leasing agreement it’s entered into with Crown Castle. The deal leases 7,200 wireless towers to the infrastructure firm for a term of 28 years in exchange for $2.4 billion — that T-Mobile’s parent Deutsche Telekom will use to pay off debt. As part of the contract, Crown Castle can buy the towers outright when the deal ends in 2040 for a further $2.4 billion — and is planning to make money by adding another tenant to T-Mobile’s system, so depending on your carrier, you might find your coverage suddenly getting a lot better.

Continue reading T-Mobile leases 7,200 mobile towers to Crown Castle in a 28-year, $2.4 billion deal

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

T-Mobile leases 7,200 mobile towers to Crown Castle in a 28-year, $2.4 billion deal originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Phonescoop  |   | Email this | Comments

Poland and Germany could be the next two countries to get smartphone payments, powered by MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom. The SIM-based NFC solution will utilize the US bank’s ClickandBuy service for processing and will be available to T-Mobile customers, rolling out to Poland in Q3 of this year and Germany in 2013. This latest partnership comes on the heels of Vodafone’s pairing with Visa, which is also said to be making a push for the German market. What remains to be seen is whether or not there is in fact a demand for mobile payments — the technology has yet to take off in the US, despite an influx of funding and infrastructure from MasterCard and Google. NFC is no doubt the future of cashless transactions, but it likely remains a few years away from hitting the mainstream, with compatible devices still limited, on both the customer and retail fronts. Hit up the links below for a closer look at DT’s push to conquer the European market, one NFC-equipped SIM card at a time. Then jump past the break for a quick intro, compliments of Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann and MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga (the two seemingly random gentlemen that you may have noticed above as well).

Continue reading MasterCard and T-Mobile to bring NFC payments to Europe in Q3 (video)

MasterCard and T-Mobile to bring NFC payments to Europe in Q3 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  Deutsche Telekom  | Email this | Comments