T-Mobile penetrates Virgin Islands

T-Mobile USA has gobbled up SunCom Wireless, looking to expand the country's fourth-leading cell phone network into Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the heart of the Southeastern United States. You know, the former confederacy. T-Mobile, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, will pay $1.6bn in cash for the regional …

[Walter Brown]

Off the map...

i dont claim to be an expert linguist by any means, however, i'm fluent in several dialects native to my homeland, including american, english, spanglish, redneck/hillbilly, corp yesman (kissass), ebonics, pot smoker and crack head, and still the quote from the Deutsche Telekom chairman was greek to me...

[tops]

will they sort out suncom's intl termination?

i tried calling a uk mobile from puerto rico at the weekend (using a postpaid account and roaming on the suncom network) and got a recorded message telling me that i needed to top-up my prepaid credit.

not only is this cheap and shabby but also illegal on the part of whoever was terminating the call on behalf of the suncom cheapskates.

[Jason Togneri]

Title!

Am I the only one to be impressed by the title, particularly since this isn't one of Lester's stories?

[Charlie Clark]

The really interesting aspects of the deal

Given the historically local nature of mobile networks in the US tie-ups and buyouts of this nature are inevitable over time. Rolling out real ocean-to-ocean coverage in the US akin to that required in Europe is time-consuming and extremely expensive. Are there any maps that show how the various networks are represented in the US? At least the move to a single standard (GSM) allows to them provide roaming services to their customers in areas where they don't have masts.

Buying a much smaller operator will not provide much in the way of synergies and it won't save the operator any roaming charges as these are paid (with interest) by the customer but it improves T-Mobile's coverage and brand recognition in an important area. Don't know how much tourist trade they can expect to pick up (and profit from) but this might have been a major motivator.

In comparison to deals by other international networks (Telefonica, Vodafone and China Mobile) it's small scale but it is in the one market that is providing significant growth for T-Mobile with Germany, the UK and the Netherlands saturated. Having paid for Voicestream in cash at the height of the mobile boom, T-Mobile doesn't have the readies for integrating large networks in developing countries with expanding markets but is funding the acquisition by the cash generated by it's US network and while that doesn't make it as big as AT&T or Verizon, margins are often more important than market share.

Apart from the back: let's get back to the sniggering!

[pctechxp]

Cracking title

Yes Jason, the title is very impressive.

[Mark Roome]

Re: Cracking title

That is indeed a great title, I also thought it was one of Lesters.

We may have to watch this Cade Metz fellow

[Anonymous Coward]

1900 MHz GSM

I think SunCom is a 1900 MHz GSM provider. They were independent, but associated with AT&T when it had its own 1900 MHz GSM phone network. When Cingular purchased AT&T wireless a few years ago, some of the 1900 MHz coverage was sold to T-Mobile, as Cingular uses 850 MHz for its GSM. At that time, SunCom allied with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile acquired the old PacBell's 1900 MHz network from Cingular in the west.

Basically, the U.S. is coming down to two GSM providers, 850 MHz Cingular and1900 MHz T-Mobile.

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketingese

Sadly, I can translate it. The first bit can be ignored safely, it's the second bit that's more important.

"As a result, this acquisition will fit very well with our strategy to grow abroad with mobile primarily within our current footprint within the context of market consolidation."

Translates roughly as "We are expanding our network to cover areas we already cover." Or: "Dur, I need to make it look like I'm doing something so they keep paying me."