AndroidGuys

While the rumors about T-Mobile acquiring Sprint, the oft troubled US wireless carrier, have subsided in recent weeks, the little magenta carrier that could may not want to let this opportunity pass.You don’t get to be the number one, two, or three carrier in the US by growing your customer base organically. For instance, Cingular acquired AT&T to become the number one carrier. Prior to that Bell Atlantic acquired GTE and changed their name to Verizon Wireless. It wasn’t too long ago that the ill fated Sprint-Nextel merger happened vaulting then number three carrier Sprint to the front of the pack albeit it for a short time. I have been wondering for a while now if T-Mobile was content with being number 4, or if the opportunity presented itself would they seize upon it to gain ground on their competitors.

What’s the rush to being number one? Having the most customers has its advantages. It’s no coincidence that AT&T got the exclusive rights to carry the iPhone instead of T-Mobile or Alltel. When you have twice as many customers as some of your competitor’s, handset manufactures and service providers tend to take notice. It also gives you more leverage when it comes to the price you pay for those handsets. Think of it as “volume discounts.” This doesn’t even take into consideration the amount of revenue all those customers generate, which typically equates to higher advertising budgets. Verizon and AT&T currently outspend T-Mobile 3 to 1 in print, TV, and radio advertising in most markets. T-Mobile’s parent company Deutsch Telecom up to this point has been reluctant to spend money in small to mid-sized markets because they don’t have the budget to compete. Instead they focus on the larger areas such as LA, New York, and Chicago where there’s a greater concentration of customers and potential revenue.

If you’re wondering why I am advocating a T-Mobile-Sprint merger when I’ve unmercifully criticized Sprint for taking on Nextel it’s simple. T-Mobile doesn’t have to make the same mistakes Sprint did. Sprint’s biggest mistake in my opinion was trying to run two networks under one business model. They should have converted Nextel customers to the Sprint network immediately. Sure they would have lost some customers, but Cingular showed that if you do it right some of those customers would eventually return. If Sprint was concerned about losing Nextel’s Push-To-Talk network, this feature could have been implemented into their existing infrastructure. Personally, I never saw the fascination with this feature but apparently some businesses can’t live without it.

T-Mobile is already rated the highest among carriers for customer service in both their retail stores and call centers, which is an area Sprint is sorely lacking. If this same “customer first” culture was brought to this merger it would stop the bleeding of customers over time and potentially create a powerhouse of a company. In this industry there are two types of companies - Those that acquire, and those that get acquired. T-Mobile has the opportunity to become the largest wireless carrier in the US. I just hope they realize there’s tremendous strength in numbers.