To anyone who doesn't read the business pages, T-Mobile may seem like a powerhouse mobile company. Its clever holiday ad campaign has been ubiquitous this fall, touting the carrier's impressive selection of smartphones and value-driven service plans. T-Mobile stores are everywhere, and winsome Canadian Carly Foulkes has become almost an iconic spokesmodel for the company. You might even think T-Mobile is a wireless carrier on par with AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
Now that AT&T has officially pulled the plug on its $39 billion acquisition, T-Mobile isn't in a far weaker position than when the deal was first announced on March 20 this year. That was almost exactly nine months ago, and anyone who does read the business pages will tell you that that's an eternity in the mobile world.
In that time, Verizon has expanded its 4G LTE network, AT&T launched one of its own, and Sprint laid out its long-term plan for one, too. Apple introduced a new iPhone and made a deal with Sprint, a bunch of cable companies made a deal to sell a vast swath of spectrum to Verizon, and even minor carriers MetroPCS and C Spire made some noise.
While all that was going on, T-Mobile was standing around watching. Sure, it was selling phones, and even debuting some pretty good ones, but the grand strategy was absent. It's now clear that the company's overseers at Deutsche Telekom (DT) were putting all their long-term eggs in AT&T's basket. Company spokesman Andreas Fuchs in fact said exactly that to reporters today: "There's no Plan B," he said. "We're back at the starting point."
For Sale: One Wireless Carrier, at Discount
So what does a second-tier U.S. carrier do now that it's just been left at the altar? The options for T-Mobile now follow one of two basic routes: 1) find a new buyer, or 2) Really make a go at being a carrier (with help).
Given DT's clear desire to sell, the former is more likely, so let's cover that first. T-Mobile may be in a weaker position than it was nine months ago, but because the deal collapsed, it's now got $4 billion in cash and assets, plus has a pretty good roaming deal with AT&T. No new buyer will be willing to spend $39 billion on the company, but it's far from death's door.
Let's first throw out the popular idea that Sprint might buy T-Mobile. Sprint's CDMA technology is incompatible with T-Mobile's network, it doesn't have the money now that it's just spent billions to get the iPhone, and such a deal would bring up the exact same concerns about competition that the FCC was so keen on on pointing out.
The major cable companies aren't interested either. Now that they've made a pact with Verizon to sell their spectrum for services (as well as halting FiOS from advancing on their territory), they're certainly quite happy to remove themselves from actually running a nationwide network.
More fanciful scenarios make a case for the likes of Apple, Google or even Microsoft to buy T-Mobile. There are actually good reasons for each to get into the wireless provider business — Apple to complete the end-to-end iPhone experience, Google to finally get Android out of the carriers' hands — but the reasons not to buy are far more numerous and weighty: the iPhone is technically incompatible with T-Mobile's spectrum, Android's strength comes from its wide availability on carriers, neither is a "value" brand like T-Mobile is, and so on.
No, the more likely, and less sexy buyer is another foreign carrier such as Russia's VimpelCom or Spain's Telefonica. There are some rumors that foreign carriers werw mulling a bid for T-Mobile before AT&T swooped in with its $39 billion check. I'll be they can get it now at a sizable discount.
A Better Solution: Finding the Right Partner(s)
T-Mobile is in trouble, but again, it could be worse. it just got $4 billion. The company is profitable and commands a large subscriber base, even if both of those things are shrinking. With the right partnerships — and some willingness from the company's leadership to actually compete in the U.S. — T-Mobile could still be a player.
Dish Network is a primary candidate for a partner, since it was fingered as one of the parties interested in buying T-Mobile's assets when AT&T was floating its "divestiture" option. It has some spectrum, and the company has a history of making big bets on partnerships and acquisitions (e.g. Slingbox, Blockbuster). More importantly, those moves have done all right for them. Of course, all these things also make Dish attractive to AT&T, which is still hungry for more spectrum and assets.
Another possibility is to get cozier with one or more of the minor carriers here in the States: MetroPCS, US Cellular, Cricket, and others. There would be some technical issues, certainly, since those networks don't use T-Mobile's GSM tech, but not nearly of the scale as a merger with, say, Sprint.
Then there's the uncomfortable issue of 4G LTE. T-Mobile's biggest problem right now is that it has no plan to roll out the service, which puts it in the position of making a deal with Clearwire, which is half-owned by Sprint, or LightSquared, whose 4G technology appears to have serious, potentially life-threatening technical problems. Still, they're there, and both companies certainly could use some of the money T-Mobile just got. There's also the possibility of acquiring more spectrum at auction.
So, yes, T-Mobile emerges from the AT&T non-deal with no iPhone, no plan for LTE, and a declining balance sheet. But it still has assets that many of its competitors can only dream of, and there's that $4 billion it just got. If MetroPCS suddenly had the tools and money T-Mobile has at its disposal, you can bet it would give the majors a run for their money. If only the executives at Deutsche Telekom could learn to channel their inner entrepreneur, T-Mobile's future might not be so bleak.
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