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According to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint is the latest company to pronounce its deep affection for T-Mobile, and is doing the mergers-and-acquisition version of talking to a potential spouse’s parents by making the regulatory rounds before popping the question.
The deal would require the thumbs-up from the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Dept., both of whom ended AT&T’s hopes of living in wedded bliss with T-Mobile (and thereby eliminating a pesky, low-cost competitor from the market).
Part of the reason that T-Mobile is in constant talks for takeover is the fact that parent company Deutsche Telekom really wants to unload it, like a parent whose kid won’t move out unless he/she gets married to someone with more money.
T-Mobile did do a little acquiring of its own in recent months, picking up upstart wireless provider MetroPCS. Similarly, Japanese telecom biggie SoftBank recently invested billions in Sprint, getting 80% control of the company in return.
But would a combination of T-Mobile and Sprint be too big for regulators to approve? With around 53 million combined subscribers, a merger would still leave AT&T and Verizon Wireless as the two largest players in the market with 72 million and 95 million subscribers, respectively.
Some have argued that the only way for either Sprint or T-Mobile to survive in the long run is for them to combine forces, that the only way AT&T and Verizon will take them seriously as a competitor is if they have enough of the market to effect change on their own.
We would contend that T-Mobile, in spite of being the smallest player among the four remaining nationals, has still been able to change the wireless market. Earlier this year, it did away with phone subsidies, breaking out the cost of a new device from the monthly cost of a customer’s data and voice plans.
While none of the others have followed suit so thoroughly, AT&T did recently lower prices on plans for customers who own their own phones, or who are part of the AT&T Next upgrade program. Either way, this is the second-largest wireless provider encouraging customers to pay for their own phones, something we doubt would have happened if T-Mobile hadn’t done it first.
Would a combined T-Mobile and Sprint keep this competitive mindset, or would it be tempted to test the waters and see if its customers are willing to pay the premium prices charged by AT&T and Verizon?
This is all very premature, but it’s the kind of thing you have to think about when you start to consider an America with only three major wireless players.
How many times have you walked into a bank branch and done business with a teller recently? Between using ATMs to make deposits and withdraw cash and getting direct deposit from your workplace, the answer is probably “not all that many.” The bank PNC looks at customers like you and sees the future. A future without traditional teller windows.
Instead of getting in a teller line, PNC customers of the future will walk up to concierge desks. Instead of tellers, they’ll meet with “financial consultants” who can perform transactions like a teller would, but also sell customers new services, advise them, and show them how to use mobile banking so they don’t need to walk into a branch so much in the first place.
“This is being driven by customer choices,” a company spokesman told journalists. The question is, will customers show up in a branch even less with the new format, or seek out a bank where they don’t have to deal with a salesperson every time they want to deposit some rolled coins?
PNC Bank plans to eliminate tellers at many of its branches
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