Hasta La Gadget!

Flipping through the slide deck accompanying a hastily-arranged press conference this morning to talk up AT&T’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA, it’s now clear that the company is interested in augmenting its 700MHz LTE spectrum with T-Mobile’s 1700MHz AWS airwaves — a move that it says would help it deploy LTE to 95 percent of the American population. AWS is currently used by T-Mobile for its 3G services, but running LTE there isn’t without precedent — that’s where MetroPCS is already set up, so there’s some potential for consumer hardware and infrastructure synergy there.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has said that the purchase would help the FCC achieve the National Broadband Plan’s goal of ubiquitous (read: rural) broadband availability — clearly a nudge at the feds to push approval in the right direction. General counsel Wayne Watts says they’ve “studied the law, studied the facts” and believe that the transaction can and should go through — but be that as it may, they’re still anticipating “focused divestitures,” probably not unlike the markets Verizon had to flip in order to win approval of its Alltel buy.

Confirmed: AT&T wants to use T-Mobile’s AWS spectrum for LTE buildout originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wowzers! AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stocks. The combined customer base of this upcoming behemoth will be 130 million humans, though the agreed deal will have to pass the usual regulatory and closing hurdles before becoming complete. The two companies estimate it’ll take them 12 months to get through all the bureaucracy — if they get through, the proposed network merger will create a de facto GSM monopoly within the United States — but we don’t have to wait that long to start discussing life with only three major US carriers. AT&T envisions it as a rosy garden of “straightforward synergies” thanks to a set of “complementary network technologies, spectrum positions and operations.”

One of the other big benefits AT&T is claiming here is a significantly expanded LTE footprint — 95 percent of Americans, or 294 million pops — which works out to 46.5 million more than AT&T was claiming had it gone LTE alone. Of course, T-Mobile has never put forth a clear strategy for migrating to LTE, suggesting that AT&T plans on using the company’s AWS spectrum to complement its own 700MHz licenses as it moves to 4G. You might be groaning at the thought of yet another LTE band, but it’s not as bad as you might think: MetroPCS already has a live LTE network functioning on AWS, so there’s precedent for it. For further details, hit up the gallery below, the Mobilize Everything site, or the official press release after the break.

In the event of the deal failing to receive regulatory approval, AT&T will be on the hook for $3 billion to T-Mobile — a breakup fee, they call it — along with transferring over some AWS spectrum it doesn’t need for its LTE rollout, and granting T-Mo a roaming agreement at a value agreeable to both parties.

Update: TmoNews obtained a copy of Deutsche Telekom’s press release regarding the deal — it looks like the German company will be getting $25 billion in cash and $14 billion in stock, giving it an 8 percent stake in AT&T when all is said and done. Read the full document after the break.

Continue reading AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion (update)

AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been listening to the Engadget Mobile podcast lately, you’ll know that we don’t much like this trend of using verbs as phone names, but T-Mobile clearly hasn’t gotten the message, as one of its upcoming handsets is rumored to be called the Astound. What exactly this rebadged Nokia C7 is supposed to astound us with, we’re not really sure. We’ve seen its Clear Black Display already, which is very nice, but we’ve also seen the dead OS walking that is its Symbian installation. Still, for $80 on contract, it doesn’t necessarily have to compete with the crème de la Gingerbread to be an appealing option. Look out for it early next month, waving the Magenta flag with pride.

Nokia C7 rumored for T-Mobile launch under Astound moniker, to cost $80 on April 6th originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It ain’t as crazy as you may think. If you’ll recall, we actually heard last month that Deutsche Telekom was mulling the idea of spinning off T-Mobile USA from its portfolio, and now it looks as if one carrier in particular is interested. According to the inimitable “people with knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that Deutsche Telekom has gone ahead with talks to “sell its T-Mobile USA unit to Sprint in exchange for a major stake in the combined entity.” Granted, there’s no guarantees at this point that the two will actually reach a deal that sits well with both boards, and up until now, they haven’t been able to come to terms with T-Mob’s valuation. As the story goes, Deutsche Telekom has purportedly said that it could sell “all or part of the US business, and all options are open.” Meanwhile, Sprint’s remaining mum. A merger of these two would combine the number three and four players in America, but if that doesn’t pan out, T-Mobile USA may end up buying wireless spectrum from Clearwire as an alternative. We’re hearing that an outright sale of T-Mobile in the US is pretty much off of the table, but considering just how many backroom talks are apparently going on in both camps, we won’t be surprised until they tell us to be.

Deutsche Telekom thinking of merging T-Mobile USA with Sprint? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 09:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At its press conference at Mobile World Congress today, Deutsche Telekom — the German parent of T-Mobile subsidiaries around the world — mentioned that it’ll start launching NFC payment systems in handsets across multiple markets starting this year with full deployments in 2012. T-Mobile USA will be included in the action through the Isis initiative announced in late 2010 in partnership with AT&T and Verizon, but here’s where it gets particularly interesting: DT execs apparently name dropped Apple during the live event for a 2011 launch. Of course, there’s no shortage of rumors that the next-gen iPhone will include some manner of NFC capability, and it certainly seems like an Apple endorsement would work wonders in taking the technology to a new level of consumer acceptance. Follow the break for the full press release — it doesn’t mention Apple, interestingly, so it’s entirely possible that this was an executive slip-up. More on this as we have it.

Update: Rich from Phone Scoop wrote in to let us know that the Apple mention was in a slide deck handed out during the conference, not verbalized by executives. Interesting!

Continue reading Deutsche Telekom rolling out NFC payments with T-Mobile USA, other markets this year; NFC iPhone along for the ride?

Deutsche Telekom rolling out NFC payments with T-Mobile USA, other markets this year; NFC iPhone along for the ride? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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