Although it has been innovative in building a national Wi-Fi hotspot network that has improved its customer acquisition and loyalty overall, this is small fry considering that it does not expect to be able to launch 3G for two more years. It is now a minnow floating behind three giants and has the least clear growth path of any of the players. This seems a good time for Verizon to expand its spectrum base and take its very real chance of regaining the number one spot organically, without the expense and pain of a hostile acquisition, and while all its rivals are distracted.
#Sprint tor network plus#
Plus its relegation to second place in the rankings has made it easier for it to snap up small local cellcos and spectrum that has become available recently, including much of the NextWave PCS assets, without attracting regulatory disapproval. Its next generation roll-out, based on CDMA EV-DO, is well ahead of other 3G deployments in the US and it even announced its first 3G handset this week. Verizon Wireless is storming ahead, and taking aggressive advantage of the disruption within Cingular's customer base caused by the merger. Verizon Wireless, widely tipped to mount a reactive bid for Sprint (and still favored by some to go after the combined Sprint-Nextel, a deal that would surely attract antitrust authority attention) in the end stayed its hand. The other big question mark hangs over the cellcos that have not made a merger this year. But cellular services round the world are becoming a business where size is critical and where there is a real advantage to having multiple delivery networks. There are many question marks, of course, over how easily they will achieve integration of businesses, networks and brands - and a lurking disappointment that Nextel was not braver, using its street fighting ways to create a fourth generation network in its own right. Sprint-Nextel will remain firmly in third place in terms of customer numbers, but it stands a good chance, if recent performance is anything to go by, of being the most profitable, fast growing and creative of the cellcos, and of creating the first national US broadband wireless network into the bargain. They have huge differences - of technology, culture and customer base - but bring many strengths that a strong management should be able to combine to become more than the sum of their parts. These are two companies that have already gone a long way to turning themselves around and adopting creative strategies to compensate for their relatively small size. By contrast, the speed and decisiveness with which the (admittedly far simpler) Sprint-Nextel merger has been engineered, and the approach of the participants, throws out hope of a new vigor among the mobile operators. Though the two companies achieved market leading bulk, their marriage was one of deeply flawed operations with poor customer service records and unimaginative future technology paths.Īs such, they were representative of the US communications industry as a whole, and will face all the problems of that sector in trying to turn their ship around. The takeover of AT&T Wireless by Cingular was messy, protracted and the buyer has been saddled with an inflated purchase price and a difficult consolidation process. The difference in style and execution of the two deals symbolizes wider contrasts that will filter through to the market as the four companies involved go through their transition periods.
So 2004 has started and ended with a major US cellco merger.
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