Liberty's Malone Eyes Cable Takeover of T-Mobile - Report

Liberty's Malone Eyes Cable Takeover of T-Mobile – Report

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Alison_ Diana 1/12/2017 | 12:16:35 PM

Re: Cross M&A I've noticed that, too, Brian: Rumors become reality, demonstrating a lot of string-pullilng, propoganda and testing of the waters before execs from the two merging or acquired/acquiree actually speak. It would be interesting to look back say five years and track the rumor mill vs. what actually happened (and their success rate).

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DanJones 1/12/2017 | 11:07:09 AM

Re: Cross M&A Legere calls it "Vericast"

http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/lte-a-pro/t-mobile-ceo-sees-craziness-and-big-deals--/d/d-id/729391

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DanJones 1/12/2017 | 11:07:09 AM

Re: Cross M&A Legere calls it "Vericast"

http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/lte-a-pro/t-mobile-ceo-sees-craziness-and-big-deals--/d/d-id/729391

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inkstainedwretch 1/11/2017 | 7:07:02 PM

Cross M&A And it's worth mentioning that some Wall Streeters have already decided that Verizon-Comcast would be a good merger. Those things tend to take on a life of their own -- Comcast didn't really want Time Warner Cable that badly, but it still made the bid in part because Wall Street was encouraging it. Merger fantasies can end up manifesting.

If I were Charter, I wouldn't want to go up against that combination. Proposing a Comcast/Charter/Cox takeover of T-Mobile might make sense all on its own, but it would also give Comcast incentive to keep Verizon at arm's length.

The interesting thing is how these wireless/cable mergers might affect competition. The big cable operators will not compete with each -- at least not so far. Verizon and AT&T do compete with FiOS and U-verse, but the rollouts of both were circumscribed, and were always going to be. For years and years and years, both VZ and T have been promising they'd become fully competitive (geographically speaking) with wireless broadband, but it will be years and years more before theymake good on that promise in any meaningful way.

I can see where further consolidation could have a big downside for competition, but I'd be interested to see an evaluation of wireless/cable mergers to see if there's a chance that competition might actually increase. I wouldn't bet on it, but I'd like to see the argument.

-- Brian Santo

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