Sprint was effectively on life support and the last CEO’s only job was to pump up subscriber numbers as high as possible to make a deal as attractive as possible. That’s why Sprint had so many “free” deals a year before the acquisition was announced.
The US government made a massive miscalculation on Dish network, when in reality it really should have been split amongst CableCos who are now stealing customers from the big 3 because they have already done the hard part of building infrastructure, while Dish can’t even get off the ground.
What the government did with Sprint was akin to allowing GM to be purchased by Ford. Whether or not that happens in bankruptcy court is almost irrelevant: a huge business in an oligopoly merging into another is generally bad news and the government should be on top of it.
(Let me also be clear to people who hated the automotive bailouts: they were easily the best possible outcome and hindsight shows they were great policy. The alternative was essentially the collapse of the American automotive industry, allowing the US to follow the fate of the British industry, and on top of that government made a profit on its investment of taxpayer dollars to carry it out)
No, just because those are around does not mean there wasn’t a better alternative in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy does not mean the individual company stops making cars, let alone the entire industry collapsing. That’s pure FUD to justify the govt preventing a moribund industry from being purged of legacy companies coasting on their brand.
You look at companies like Lotus, MG, Land Rover, Jaguar, and even Volvo and you look at a future where their intellectual property assets essentially only exist to help geopolitical rivals. GM and Ford being sold to the Chinese would have been devastating to US industry.
There is no Volvo EV that is built in Sweden. There is no Lotus EV built in Britain. At the end of the gasoline production line run it’s just China producing all their future electric cars when they go fully electric in 5 years.
Don’t forget that automotive parts are a huge employer beyond the auto manufacturers themselves. If Geely buys Ford they’re moving parts supply to China. It’s a whole ecosystem and it’s strategically worth protecting.
Like I said, don’t forget how the government was paid back in full with interest for the bailouts. On top of that the governor gets to keep people employed rather than sending the jobs abroad. It was a no brainer obvious good policy, supported by both parties as well.
If you get too big to fail, why avoid failure? It’s about incentives.
How useful or efficient or competitive do you think taxpayer-funded Sprint would be today? What makes you think they would suddenly start being good with an influx of tax money when they weren’t good before free money injections?
The government depends on three carriers (ATT, Verizon, Sprint) for its own redundant critical communications (Continuity of government, military communications, etc).
The entire deal was structured in a way where where the wireless subscribers were shed onto T-Mobile and the important guts of Sprint were sold to Cogent for $0, who didn't have the capability or desire to take on the consumer facing business.
Ultimately what we need is much stronger anti-trust legislation against all kinds of companies that are too big, or aren’t in functioning competitive environments.
This is not at all surprising, and we've seen this happen over and over. Two big companies merge, promise prices won't go up so the merge gets approved, then within a few years, sure enough prices go up.
This should always be the default. The first rule of capitalism is that companies lie. Who’s going to stop them?
So that Verizon could own the entire market along with a few also-rans? It was a choice between the lesser of two evils.
You don't fix a monopoly by creating more monopolies.
I am not familiar with the telecom market. But blocking mergers doesn’t necessarily increase competition. (For example, breaking up Walmart would reduce competitive pressure on Amazon.)
In addition to out-and-out opposition or agreement that sounds vaguely oppositional, a comment might call for a pedantic annotation, a tangential aside or book recommendation.
sudo !!You know what they say about things that aren't falsifiable, they're definitely correct!!
Ah, the ol' Hitchens's movie night: "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed with popcorn".
By creating actual competition. Sprint and T-Mobile separately would always be second tier to Verizon. Combined, their network actually competes.