Sprint Chairman Promises "Massive Price War" With Verizon And AT&T, If Sprint/T-Mobile Buy Succeeds
While plenty are skeptical of the value to consumers if Sprint is allowed to acquire T-Mobile, effectively reducing the number of wireless carriers in the U.S. from four to three, Sprint’s chairman Masayoshi Son (who is also the president of SoftBank) promises that it will be a boon to all.
Son told Charlie Rose that he wants to be a true heavyweight in the mobile provider fight--which he can and will do, as long as the T-Mobile acquisition goes through. “We need a certain scale, but once we have enough scale to have a level fight, OK,” he said “It’s a three-heavyweight fight. If I can have a real fight, I go in a more massive price war, a technology war.”
Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
He also wants to upgrade our (frankly, rather pathetic) Internet infrastructure and push wireless broadband instead of cable--both of which are items that we sorely need.
According to Bloomberg, Son has done just that before, when he bought Vodafone Group’s Japan wing years ago, renamed it “SoftBank”, and substantially increased the carrier’s market share and user base.
It’s a tough proposition, then, a gamble that U.S. regulators have to make: Can they trust Son to make good on his word that having three more or less equal mobile competitors is better than having two smaller companies and two larger?
Son told Charlie Rose that he wants to be a true heavyweight in the mobile provider fight--which he can and will do, as long as the T-Mobile acquisition goes through. “We need a certain scale, but once we have enough scale to have a level fight, OK,” he said “It’s a three-heavyweight fight. If I can have a real fight, I go in a more massive price war, a technology war.”
Credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
He also wants to upgrade our (frankly, rather pathetic) Internet infrastructure and push wireless broadband instead of cable--both of which are items that we sorely need.
According to Bloomberg, Son has done just that before, when he bought Vodafone Group’s Japan wing years ago, renamed it “SoftBank”, and substantially increased the carrier’s market share and user base.
It’s a tough proposition, then, a gamble that U.S. regulators have to make: Can they trust Son to make good on his word that having three more or less equal mobile competitors is better than having two smaller companies and two larger?
