Sprint Seeks Partnership with Dish Network

Another mega-merger made in corporate interests.

So we got google and sprint all trying to piggy back on dish's decision to move into the mobile market?  

If it improves cell phone service why not?
Hopefully though, those potential "fees" for use or the partnership in general won't cause sprint to have to jack up their service plans. 

realneil:

Another mega-merger made in corporate interests.

A buddy of mine worked for AT&T as contractor for a while repairing telephone lines.  During their 2 weeks of training up in Oklahoma City, his instructor had a slideshow that showed AT&T (or whatever it used to be) before it was split up due to being a monopoly.  Then it went on to show how this one company bought out one of the pieces, then another company bought up another piece, then in the end AT&T bought all those companies.  So in the end AT&T is back to having the exact monopoly again over phone service, but no ones bothered to break them up again.  Strange eh?

If that's the case I'm sure they'll potentially have a little competition from Sprint now anyways, but it seems like buying up smaller companies isn't unique to AT&T, Verizon Wireless owns a couple smaller cell phone companies they bought like Virgin Mobile too.

OSunday:

If that's the case I'm sure they'll potentially have a little competition from Sprint now anyways, but it seems like buying up smaller companies isn't unique to AT&T, Verizon Wireless owns a couple smaller cell phone companies they bought like Virgin Mobile too.

Everyone buys smaller companies, that just standard business practice for larger companies.  The interesting point was that AT&T was a monopoly that was broken up by the US, then went back and bought back everything it was forced to lose, therefore remaining a monopoly.

Ahh I see but... what I guess they found some sort of major loophole to be able to do that and might be potentially looking at having "monopoly" thrown at them again, even if it isn't the case.

Maybe the purpose of the breakup was to let other companies establish a foothold, which now that, that may have theoretically been accomplished might mean that if AT&T re-buys everything they were forced to lose, their no longer a monopoly in the present with the same assets from a few years ago because of the growth of other companies 

OSunday:

Ahh I see but... what I guess they found some sort of major loophole to be able to do that and might be potentially looking at having "monopoly" thrown at them again, even if it isn't the case.

Maybe the purpose of the breakup was to let other companies establish a foothold, which now that, that may have theoretically been accomplished might mean that if AT&T re-buys everything they were forced to lose, their no longer a monopoly in the present with the same assets from a few years ago because of the growth of other companies 

Lets just stick with they were a monopoly who split up and bought everyone back, so they're a monopoly again.

My head is hurting.

Haha, ok ok.
...But AT&T really isn't as much of a monopoly anymore, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile compete decently well with them

OSunday:

Haha, ok ok.
...But AT&T really isn't as much of a monopoly anymore, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile compete decently well with them

On the wireless side yeah, but AT&T's monopoly is mainly land lines and long distance service. 

Here's the picture the guy showed my buddy in the training siminar. 

This is actually from the Colbert report, but it's sadly true.

This one is a little easier to read, basically the businesses in the middle resulted from the government breaking up the monopoly in 1984, and the items on the right are where they are in the present day.

Ahh, I didn't consider landline services... I kind of assumed not many people use them anymore. My family doesn't, we all have cell phones.