I was looking forward to see what would happen with my T-Mobile plan, if the T-Mobile purchase would go thru. I guess now I'll continue to stay with my grandfathered TMo plan, as nothing currently comes close to it in price.
DISH Makes offer to buy Sprint (Rescinded)
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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Wonder what it will do to nascar? Maybe instead of the "sprint cup" we will have the "hopper cup".
BB was doomed, in today's world most people are not going out of their way even by 100 feet to get a video when Netflix will mail it to you or stream it to you. I have been with Netflix over 4 years and never gotten a shiny disc from any b&m or even redbox.
I don;t think they wanted a direct rival to Netflix, they are leaving that to Amazon to make a play for. I also think that is why they did not go direct for Netflix, because I think that would have woken the sleeping tiger (Amazon) to get more aggressive with a subscription streaming other than Prime. I think they wanted a more complete delivery system to compete with cable. Cable's big draw is VOD and Dish needed a VOD component to go head to head with Cable. While the marketing is not great you have a really great DVR (Hopper) and now a VOD mechanism, couple that with sling and then Sprint and think about it you will get ALL your content anytime anyplace and if they have Sprint and you sign up for Sprint you won't have to worry about data charges to watch that content.
If they manage Sprint like they have been managing Dishnet/Hughes I don't see it being successful. Hughes is $69.99 a month for 10 MBPS and 10 gigs of data. You can get wireless hotspot for that price and take it where ever you go. Even rural areas are getting 4G/GTE. If they want to compete they have to make it affordable. With cell phones you have many more choices than with TV or internet. With 2 year contracts, strict data caps and excessive disclosers on the sales end Dish will fail with Sprint.
Dish don't "Hop"per any more, they "Sprint" haha.
Looks like the next generation of satellite receivers will be smart phones? Perhaps a satellite tuner in the future cell phones? Perhaps it can receive the signal from the tower or satellite for your phone, broadband and television all through the phone. Then a projector from the phone for your television viewing.
Looks like the next generation of satellite receivers will be smart phones? Perhaps a satellite tuner in the future cell phones? Perhaps it can receive the signal from the tower or satellite for your phone, broadband and television all through the phone. Then a projector from the phone for your television viewing.
Interesting article at Yahoo....
http://news.yahoo.com/dishs-25-5-billion-sprint-bid-may-force-043026668--finance.html
http://news.yahoo.com/dishs-25-5-billion-sprint-bid-may-force-043026668--finance.html
Someone upstream in this conversation chain mentioned DISH’s level of debt. I understand the offer for Sprint to be 25B + in cash. Charlie’s got the cash on hand? If so it gives me a nice warm feeling to see how my rate increases and his refusal to pay for more expensive RESNs has been used.
It is not really $25 billion in cash, it is a litte over $17 billion in cash, $8.2 of which Dish already has, (most of that comes from the issuance of long term bonds (debt). DISH will have to finance (issue more bonds) the remaining $8 or $9 billion of the cash. The remaining $7 plus billion of the offer will be tendered in approximately $2.24 of DISH stock, which works out to about .062 share of DISH stock.
So if the merger were to go through, it will be a highly leveraged company, and will have to issue further debt to be able to make capital improvements to implement the changes that are needed to make Charlie's vision come to life.
Charlie (DISH) doesn't really have $25 billion of "free" cash lying around to buy Sprint.
A corporation such as Apple or Berkshire Hathway could snap it up free and clear, as they have that much just "lying around" but Dish does not.
As a matter of fact, as far as market capitalizaton goes, which is the total value of the number of shares outstanding, DISH market cap is around 16.6 billion, Sprint's is about 21 billion, so in those terms, DISH is trying to acquire a corporation that is larger than it is.
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This article explains where the money is coming from.
http://news.yahoo.com/dishs-25-5-billion-sprint-bid-may-force-043026668--finance.html
http://news.yahoo.com/dishs-25-5-billion-sprint-bid-may-force-043026668--finance.html
The doom of the video rental stare, being BB, the video department at your local grocery store, was the advent of Red Box. You can get your overnight rental and return it without having to go a rental store. Here in WNY, that was the reason that Wegmans closed all it's video rental departments.
Japan's Softbank says it will complete its deal with Sprint on July 1st, despite Dish offer
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Japa...Sprint-on-July-1st-despite-Dish-offer_id41964
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Japa...Sprint-on-July-1st-despite-Dish-offer_id41964
What else can they say? But Softbank market value dropped 9+ percent this morning, so a bunch of investors have other ideas how this is going to turn out (either Softbank raises their offer price or loses the bidding war).
While Dish's buyout of Sprint, if it goes through, may be good for Dish, I think it's going to be bad for Sprint, it's owned brands like Virgin and Boost Mobile, and it's various MNVO's (smaller cell companies who lease access to Sprint's network on behalf of their customers). The network is already overcrowded and the LTE has yet to be fully built out, and as they are finally beginning to make progress with that, with network vision initiatives, incoming money from the Softbank buyout, and the Clearwire spectrum purchase; Dish wants to come in and completely change course.
The problems would be:
1. After the buyout Dish is going to be low on cash and find it difficult to borrow money. Can they even complete existing network vision initiatives and LTE build outs in progress in a timely fashion? Can they expand the network further?
2. Can Dish afford to purchase Clearwire after purchasing Sprint? The bandwidth tables show Softbank buying Sprint buying Clearwire results in much more spectrum than Dish buying Sprint and then not buying Clearwire. We've seen conflicting reports as to whether Dish can truly afford to take on both.
3. Dish looks like their ultimate plan is to re-farm existing and potential cell spectrum into spectrum for television (Which is bandwidth heavy) to some degree. Where does this leave cell customers? Where does this leave the new video customers (Because even if all the bandwidth is used for video, I don't see it as being enough to support a large scale national service)?
4. In the end, what I am seeing here is Dish trying to take on too much. If they manage to pull it off, to manage the spectrum demand the type of integrated bundled services they are talking about will create, they will likely wind up taking measures to ensure they don't take on too many customers, meaning very high priced hardware and credit checks out the wazoo with fairly high credit thresholds *or* a very poor quality network that doesn't work as advertised for most customers because it's so overcrowded.
5. I see this having a detrimental market effect on the cost of cell phone plans in general. Verizon and AT&T have high priced plans that mostly require contracts, and allow very few third parties to operate on their networks under very limited circumstances with restrictions. Sprint's "bargain" brands and MNVO's provide a lower cost contract-free no-credit check alternative that allows people who wouldn't be able to have smartphones to have them. If a Dish purchase needs spectrum for other things and edges out or eliimates those brands and MNVOs, or raises prices (directly for their owned brands, and indirectly for MNVO customers by raising the wholesale rates the smaller companies pay), T-Mobile (Which is buying MetroPCS) will be the last man standing with a direct prepaid service and MVNOs that cater to poorer lower credit customers, but they'll have no competition for that market and raise rates and lower quality of service (or fail to cut rates and increase quality of service) because of it. Plus, T-Mobile isn't an option for some customers, because large chunks of it's coverage area are *2*g only (Not 4g, not 3g).
I think there are potential anti-trust implications here if one considers no-contract pre-paid smartphone service as a separate consumer market from contract service, because all the sudden if Sprint is no longer providing backbone on a large scale or intentionally prices out customers or fails to keep up with new features in order to free up spectrum, there is only T-Mobile providing backbone for that market, and T-Mobile would then have monopoly position in it, and T-Mobile does not have an adequate network or resources to really cover most of those customers anyway.
I think you could see a lot of people walking around now with Boost, Virgin, Ting, etc. smartphones wind up taking a trip back in time to "feature"phone land and paying more for the privilege as a potential long-term effect of this buyout. Even T-Mobile and Straight Talk users would could wind up in similar situations because of T-Mobile's then monopoly over the market. Whereas, the alternate of Softbank buying Sprint and Sprint buying Clearwire actually boosts the no-contract pre-paid and MNVO markets, and creates more spectrum with better service and a vigorous competition with the combined T-Mobile/Metro-PCS to provide better phones and lower prices, with better service in more areas. In a sense, the more spectrum you have, the more incentive you have to sell it cheap to make sure you are making some money off it. Unless you're Dish and use the spectrum for video services, or can't afford to build the towers and upgrade existing ones to the fullest extent possible.
The problems would be:
1. After the buyout Dish is going to be low on cash and find it difficult to borrow money. Can they even complete existing network vision initiatives and LTE build outs in progress in a timely fashion? Can they expand the network further?
2. Can Dish afford to purchase Clearwire after purchasing Sprint? The bandwidth tables show Softbank buying Sprint buying Clearwire results in much more spectrum than Dish buying Sprint and then not buying Clearwire. We've seen conflicting reports as to whether Dish can truly afford to take on both.
3. Dish looks like their ultimate plan is to re-farm existing and potential cell spectrum into spectrum for television (Which is bandwidth heavy) to some degree. Where does this leave cell customers? Where does this leave the new video customers (Because even if all the bandwidth is used for video, I don't see it as being enough to support a large scale national service)?
4. In the end, what I am seeing here is Dish trying to take on too much. If they manage to pull it off, to manage the spectrum demand the type of integrated bundled services they are talking about will create, they will likely wind up taking measures to ensure they don't take on too many customers, meaning very high priced hardware and credit checks out the wazoo with fairly high credit thresholds *or* a very poor quality network that doesn't work as advertised for most customers because it's so overcrowded.
5. I see this having a detrimental market effect on the cost of cell phone plans in general. Verizon and AT&T have high priced plans that mostly require contracts, and allow very few third parties to operate on their networks under very limited circumstances with restrictions. Sprint's "bargain" brands and MNVO's provide a lower cost contract-free no-credit check alternative that allows people who wouldn't be able to have smartphones to have them. If a Dish purchase needs spectrum for other things and edges out or eliimates those brands and MNVOs, or raises prices (directly for their owned brands, and indirectly for MNVO customers by raising the wholesale rates the smaller companies pay), T-Mobile (Which is buying MetroPCS) will be the last man standing with a direct prepaid service and MVNOs that cater to poorer lower credit customers, but they'll have no competition for that market and raise rates and lower quality of service (or fail to cut rates and increase quality of service) because of it. Plus, T-Mobile isn't an option for some customers, because large chunks of it's coverage area are *2*g only (Not 4g, not 3g).
I think there are potential anti-trust implications here if one considers no-contract pre-paid smartphone service as a separate consumer market from contract service, because all the sudden if Sprint is no longer providing backbone on a large scale or intentionally prices out customers or fails to keep up with new features in order to free up spectrum, there is only T-Mobile providing backbone for that market, and T-Mobile would then have monopoly position in it, and T-Mobile does not have an adequate network or resources to really cover most of those customers anyway.
I think you could see a lot of people walking around now with Boost, Virgin, Ting, etc. smartphones wind up taking a trip back in time to "feature"phone land and paying more for the privilege as a potential long-term effect of this buyout. Even T-Mobile and Straight Talk users would could wind up in similar situations because of T-Mobile's then monopoly over the market. Whereas, the alternate of Softbank buying Sprint and Sprint buying Clearwire actually boosts the no-contract pre-paid and MNVO markets, and creates more spectrum with better service and a vigorous competition with the combined T-Mobile/Metro-PCS to provide better phones and lower prices, with better service in more areas. In a sense, the more spectrum you have, the more incentive you have to sell it cheap to make sure you are making some money off it. Unless you're Dish and use the spectrum for video services, or can't afford to build the towers and upgrade existing ones to the fullest extent possible.
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Yeah I would rather see Sprint go with Dish due to I think it would be a good match and I think getting things through the FCC would go a little smoother as well.
Your math skills are really poor.
I see where I did mess up when I said twice the size. I need to fix that part of it. The last time that I paid attention to DISH's market cap, it was around 10 billion, the share price has increased in value since I noticed. I was thinking about it being 10 billion when I wrote that part of the post, then I looked before I posted the acutal amount, and it had increased to 16.6 billion.
I will now heretofore refer to the proposed merger as Sprish.
I don't know, Dishprint has a better ring to me.
