Well, that didn’t take long. Apparently, there’s already a rumor out there that two companies have bid for T-MobileUSA in the wake of AT&T’s decision to drop its attempt to buy the company. SNL Kagan quotes a source claiming that both DISH and Google have already submitted offers, and Gary Kim has chimed in with his thoughts.
Now, I can believe that DISH would be interested, as they have been talking up their LTE plans for several quarters now. But I wonder if they truly have the firepower to buy T-MobileUSA outright, given the fact that their marketcap of just under $13B is a mere third of what AT&T was going to buy T-Mo for. Of course, DT can’t expect to get the same price, but still. However, what might make sense is some sort of joint venture which lets DT take the backseat and reduces the amount it would need to invest. DISH does seem likely to find a way to enter the LTE network business this year.
But Google? Ain’t gonna happen. Yes, I know it will be rumored on a weekly basis throughout 2012 barring the announcement of a deal, but it just isn’t going to happen. I have yet to see any convincing strategic reason for Google to become a service provider. Should they do it though, you can expect the next question to be whether they will buy a major fiber network to hook it up with – since that’s the other recurring rumor that we haven’t heard from recently.
But my guess is that both of these rumors are just someone stirring the pot.
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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Wireless
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Google’s Vint Cerf is behind this and he is going to make it happen
How about if Google buys Tmobile, funds it 100%, runs it as an independent company or maybe even spins it off, but uses it to FORCE network neutrality? That is what I see happening. I don’t see it ever being Google wireless…
How about Dish and Google take a sizeable investment stake in Sprint… in conjunction with a bid for Tmobile? Makes sense to me. The combined entity lowers its cost of capital and combines the spectrum assets of Dish, scale and spectrum from Tmobile and Google gets to exert more influence in the industry… any takers?
Google buying a fiber network doesn’t make any sense. They already have fiber all over.