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Comment by ulfw | Hacker News Reader

With DT owning only 20% I doubt the brand would be T-Mobile. Most likely it would be Sprint branding and look n feel with largely T-Mo management. Will be interesting to see what happens to Bellevue as I suppose the combined co might be run from Overland Park.

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Agreed. Sprint is by far the bigger brand in the US. Although if this was even 1 year later it might be more of a toss up as T-Mobile has done great things to enhance the markets perception of them.

Well I'd argue that T-Mobile is clearly the 'preferred' brand in the market. Just kind of doubt it would make sense to brand it that way when T-Mo Intl only owns 15 or 20% of it. Who knows - maybe they come up with a new brand even (like EE for T-Mobile/Orange in the UK)

One of the nice assets you acquire when you merge is the option to use whichever brand will work best in front of consumers, no matter how small a player it actually is.

I don't know why T-Mo Int % of ownership matters one way or the other. The BOD of the new combined company would say "Ok, which brand is better to go with?" The only way I can imagine T-Mo Intl having an impact is if they specifically wanted to forbid it being called that for their own brand reasons. That might include fear that the US will screw up and drag down their brand overall. Or they may want to try again here in 5 or 10 years and use T-Mobile then etc.

It matters when you see how long DT wanted to get out of the US market. With a small ownership it's just a question of time when they get rid of that too, because frankly you have no control with that percentage. So if you don't control the entity and have no interest in it in the first place (thus the multiple tries to sell it), why tarnish your brand with something that is out of your hand and control?

"Well I'd argue that T-Mobile is clearly the 'preferred' brand in the market."

Given the sponsorships and the lack of coverage in certain markets, Sprint is the higher profile brand.

Here's the article talking about it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/29/us-softbank-tmobil...

"Deutsche Telekom may also be more accommodating with Softbank regarding a break-up fee than it was with AT&T, the sources said. That is because T-Mobile is likely to be the surviving brand and its CEO, John Legere, is likely to lead the new combined company, thus avoiding a loss of subscribers and momentum it had to contend with during the drawn out regulatory process with AT&T, two of the sources said."

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