Again, that's not how it works. You're thinking of chapter 7 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 is when the creditors become the shareholders like with Delta. The creditors will be able to put in new leadership and cut costs so Sprint can be put on a path to viability.
Yes it might fail, but you're basically saying they shouldn't try and are endorsing crony capitalism and monopolistic practices as the alternative.
TMobile might get better 5G but prices will rise and service will be worse than it has been. All the competition the wireless industry has done will slow down as the big 3 don't have to worry about a 4th competitor.
All those big wireless changes are gonna stop with this merger. TMobile will no longer have an incentive to compete and will raise prices.
Okay? That doesn't mean what we're getting is a good thing.
That's basically what Softbank did when they bought 85% of Sprint after Dan Hesse's time as CEO. Marcelo Claure replaced Hess as CEO in 2014 and he was replaced by Michael Combs in 2018. Softbank has been trying to sell Sprint for a while now and the only company they could get to even listen to them was T-Mobile. Hell, Dish could have bought Sprint and used the spectrum that they have, combined with Sprint's and built out a pretty good network. Even Dish doesn't want to touch them with that amount of debt.
Where are they going to get the capital to build out their 5G network? Where are they going to get the capital to buy more spectrum, especially in regards to mmWave? You need to be a growing company (meaning gaining new subscribers). That's something Sprint hasn't been able to do in years. Hell, they basically gave away a year of free service and it barely moved their subscriber count. You can't grow as a cellular company if you don't have new customers walking through the door (that's why the vast majority of promotions are targeted at new customers, or require a new line). That's why T-Mobile's Uncarrier moves were so successful, they brought in new subscribers and (in addition to the money they received from AT&T after that merger failed to go through), T-Mobile put that to use to expand their network and buy more spectrum (the 600mhz band was a huge pickup). T-Mobile's network before Legere took over as fucking awful.
Sprint can't do that. As mentioned before, they don't have the capital to run a program like Uncarrier. They tried it with the free service for a year and it did next to nothing. They don't have a capable enough network to draw customers in and they don't have the capital to build out their network, which is what they need to do draw new customers in.
Sprint has been a dead company walking for years. They're still paying for that awful Nextel merger, and that was back in 2005. They made the mistake of investing in WiMax where the rest of the industry was investing in LTE. This forced them behind the ball in regards to LTE adoptation, and they didn't start rolling voLTE out until 2018, four years after the other three. They're were still one of the worst carriers in regards to allowing unlocked devices on their network (along with US Cellular) and trying to get a Sprint phone unlocked is a huge pain in the ass. Their network is basically useless once you leave a major city and the further west you go, the worse it gets. These are all things that put Sprint in the financial mess they're in, and these are all things that aren't easily fixed.
If it was as simple as that, Softbank would have dropped them like a bad habit a long time ago. Nobody wants to touch Sprint due to the massive debt they hold. The only reason T-Mobile even entertained the idea of this is Sprint has something valuable (their spectrum) that T-Mobile needs, and T-Mobile has something valuable that Softbank needs (money and a somewhat decent return on a failed investment).
Sprint's problems aren't something that can easily be fixed by just replacing the board/CEO and saying, let's try again. It would take a serious investment to get them to where they need to be, and that's an investment that a lot of companies don't want to make.
So are their networks combined like... right now? Sprint works by me and its the only network that does that I am aware of, but it was more expensive than straight talk. Looks like T-mobile can offer me a competitive plan for military discount.
Sprint customers have unlimited roaming on T-Mobile's network. T-Mobile customers won't have access to Sprint's network as Sprint's towers are either going to be converted to T-Mobile towers or decommissioned (Dish has first dibs on those towers).
