At 05 May 2008 23:25:34 -0500 The Bob wrote:

> Agree 100% and it makes me wonder what magic pill T-Mo has to cure
> it.CDMA/GSM makes no more sense than CDMA/iDen.


True, but this might simply be a spectrum grab. Sprint is bleeding
customers, so given the churn rate, the customer base itself isn't really
worth much- T-Mo would really just be buying licenses, infrastructure, and
headaches!

(The old) AT&T and Cingular certainly had some hurdles converting their
TDMA networks to GSM, but they managed to pull it off in the long run. T-
Mo might be thinking that adding Sprint's spectrum (if you'll pardon the
pun!) is worth the pain of migrating one technology to the other. Like
with the GAIT and GSM/TDMA handsets offered by Cingular and AT&T during the
transition, a few GSM/CDMA combo handsets (like the "world" Blackberries
and Global Q Sprint and Verizon offer now, but reworked to use American GSM
as well) could ease the transition to whatever technology (most likely GSM,
to leverage their international networks) T-Mo settles on, and give
customers instant access to both networks without waiting for any conversion.


It wouldn't be easy, or pretty, to pull off, but no one besides T-Mo (or
maybe Alltel) is really capable of acquiring Sprint- with the recent 700
MHz auctions, both AT&T and Verizon are close to, at, (or over) the 95 MHz
spectrum "soft cap" in many markets, and couldn't acquire Sprint without
some serious divestiture (most likely to T-Mo anyway!)