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Shareholders of MetroPCS have reportedly approved the merger of the carrier with the fourth-largest mobile phone network, the Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile USA. A shareholder vote for the proposal is the last hurdle for the merger to take place, after both the FCC and Department of Justice gave their approval last month with no negative commentary.
Deutsche Telekom has updated its proposal to merge T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS with more favorable financial terms, in an effort to get shareholders to vote for the deal. The changes to the proposal, which has been deemed its "best and final offer," has forced MetroPCS to delay the final shareholder vote until April 24th.
The merger between T-Mobile and MetroPCS has been given the go-ahead to proceed by the United States Department of Justice. A 30-day waiting period, put in place by antitrust laws, has expired without the DoJ offering any objections to the merger, which would see the combined Deutsche Telekom-owned carrier and MetroPCS further embed T-Mobile's position as the fourth largest US carrier.
T-Mobile USA will start selling Apple products in 2013, according to Rene Obermann, the CEO of T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom. As was earlier speculated, Obermann revealed the plans during investors' day meetings held earlier today. Which products T-Mobile will carry hasn't been identified, but this presumably means some version of the iPhone, and likely the iPad as well.
T-Mobile USA's parent company has confirmed that it is in talks to buy MetroPCS Communications, and spokespersons from MetroPCS have confirmed that the talks are ongoing. The Boston Herald reported earlier today that the two carriers, might be looking to merge, though such an act would still leave T-Mobile trailing Sprint, the third-largest carrier in the nation. The talks are said to be ongoing, though Deutsche Telekom AG, the German company that owns T-Mobile USA, says that there are still "significant issues" to be finalized and a decision on the deal has not yet been made.
T-Mobile has signed an agreement with Crown Castle to lease 7,200 wireless towers. The carrier will hand the towers to Crown Castle for a period of 28 years, in exchange for a $2.4 billion rental fee. The proceeds of the deal will go some way towards paying off debts accumulated by T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom has named the new Chief Executive Officer for T-Mobile USA. John Legere will be taking over the reins from interim CEO Jim Alling, following the departure of previous CEO Philipp Humm in June. Legere will commence work with the company from September 22, when Alling will return to being the COO.
A pair of developments involving Germany appear to point to an impending iPhone release. Most notably, a future Apple Store in a mall in Sindelfingen -- located near Stuttgart -- has reportedly had its opening moved up to Thursday, September 20th, from a previous launch date on September 22nd. Earlier this year Apple brought forward the opening of the Highland Village Apple Store in Houston, Texas, a decision which accurately predicted the launch of the third-generation iPad. Rumors have a new iPhone being announced on September 12th, and shipping on the 21st.
European carriers are already beginning to offer pre-order reservations for the next-generation iPhone, reports say. The first of these appears to be Deutsche Telekom, which is now issuing tickets to interested customers through its distribution partners. Although they're only available on a first-come first-served basis, getting a ticket is said to ensure express delivery as soon as phones are available.
MasterCard and Deutsche Telekom will enable smartphone payments in Germany and Poland in the near future. Near Field Communication-based payments will be pushed through to T-Mobile customers in Poland by Q3 and to Germany by 2013, ahead of a potential rollout in other European regions.
Chief Executive of T-Mobile USA Philipp Humm has resigned from the company, leaving COO Jim Alling in charge while a replacement is searched for. A spokesman said that Humm is leaving his position to join an unnamed competitor in Europe, and would be rejoining his family there. Originally, Humm had advised T-Mobile of his intention to leave by September, however his departure was moved forward once he informed Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Rene Obermann of his new employer's identity, which remains unknown.
Possible slips may have revealed the first stages of a possible European Commission investigation into the continent's top five carriers. The FT heard from sources that Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), France Telecom (Orange), Telecom Italia, Telefonica (O2), and Vodafone were under scrutiny for a series of "E5" meetings on the state of the industry. Concerns existed that they had used the discussion to possibly collude on prices and policies, hurting competition.
Verizon and NEC are the first in the industry to attain 21.7 terabits per second over field fiber. The record speed was attained over 934 miles of single-mode field fiber on Verizon's network near Dallas. The modulation levels were increased, and optical carrier spacing reduced, to more than double the per-fiber capacity of current 100-gigabit systems.
German operator Deutsche Telekom has made a milestone achievement by reaching a data transmission rate of 512Gbps. The real-world speed was achieved over a single optical fiber channel over a 734km (456mi) distance between Berlin and Hannover and back again. The project, dubbed Optically Supported IP Router Interfaces (OSIRIS), was performed by DT's Berlin-based T-Labs team.
T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom may be looking to offload T-Mobile UK after AT&T dropped its bid for T-Mobile USA, insiders asserted Wednesday. Tips to Bloomberg had it in the early phases of considering a British "exit" now that AT&T's $39 billion proposal had been deemed anti-competitive. The choices could include anything from letting Orange UK take over the other half of the Everything Everywhere partnership to an outside company.
US Regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Deutsche Telekom, a Hungarian unit and three former executives in a corruption case, according to a Thursday report. The charges include bribery of government officials in Macedonia and Montenegro dating back to 2005 and 2006, with the activities made public in 2010. Magyar Telekom, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, allegedly gave Macedonian officials 4.88 million euros (about $6.3 million) disguised as consulting and marketing contracts in order to keep a rival out of the market.
T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom in new details surrounding its roaming deal with AT&T has suggested it may get much more coverage than today. A seven-year pact with the carrier will give it not just licenses for Advanced Wireless Spectrum bands (usually 1,700MHz) in 128 markets but should also let T-Mobile use AT&T's existing 3G network. The step would give it access to the same 850MHz and 1,900MHz bands and theoretically allow iPhones or other devices to connect freely without or alongside T-Mobile's regular AWS bands.
The scale of the iPhone 5 launch grew clearer after Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company, confirmed that it was already taking pre-orders as of Monday. Although the device hasn't been unveiled, at least the German division of the carrier is handing out advance coupons for those who want the future model. The campaign was being conducted in anticipation of supply shortages, representative Alexander von Schmettow told Bloomberg.
Deutsche Telekom will soon start selling iPad 2s in its stores, Dow Jones reports. While the carrier has offered iPad data plans for some time, the actual tablets have been sold elsewhere, whether through Apple Stores or third-party retailers. DT's in-house iPad sales will cover five different countries, including stores in Germany, Austria, Greece, Poland and the Netherlands.
The European Commission will, yet again, propose legislation over the next few weeks that would reduce roaming charges across European Union member countries, Reuters was told on Thursday. The cuts would be closer to national rates and while they would cut profits for carriers such as Vodafone, Telefonica (O2), Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile, and France Telecom (Orange), subscribers would get closer to regular rates for roaming. The draft is expected to be approved by June and would lower the price maximums carriers can charge for voice calls and text messages while their subscribers are traveling throughout Europe.
Sprint has opened up new fronts in its opposition to AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. In addition to the federal level, Sprint is now extending the battle down to the state level. The company has asked the state of West Virginia to review the merger. Sprint is expected to ask for similar reviews in other states.
Microsoft has updated its Windows Phone 7 update page and in doing so revealed that more devices will be getting the NoDo update within 10 business days. It will now finally arrive on AT&T's HTC Surround and over in Europe for several Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) phones. In Australia, Optus owners will get the update in the same time frame as well.
Orange's parent company France Telecom and T-Mobile's equivalent Deutsche Telekom on Monday confirmed their rumored joint venture. The deal will see the two combine their activities for buying phones, network hardware, and other parts core to their cellphone businesses. The two hoped both to get economies of scale and expected to save the equivalent of $1.86 billion over the course of the first three years.
Two major European telecommunications providers, T-Mobile's owner Deutsche Telekom and Orange's parent France Telecom, will share network gear in order to save on operating costs, sources told Reuters. The savings is expected to add up to 650 million euros (about $939 million) by 2015 with the shared hardware located in Poland, Austria, and Romania. While neither of the two providers have officially commented on this agreement, they are expected to do so at a joint press conference in London on Monday.
Sprint has been negotiating with Deutsche Telekom to buy T-Mobile USA in what would be a major shakeup of the US Cellular industry, sources alleged on Tuesday. The discussions hae been cast as "on and off" due to a dispute over how much T-Mobile would be worth, but the pursuit has raised the prospect of DT having a formal stake in the resulting union. The German company would own about half of the unified firm in this strategy, Bloomberg heard.
Deutsche Telekom has identified Apple as one of the companies which will be supporting NFC (near-field communication) payments this year, reports say. In slides handed out today during a presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Apple was listed as a company participating in the rollout of NFC payment systems across several cellphones. Although the process is beginning in 2011, full-scale deployments are only scheduled for 2012.
T-Mobile, the last bidder left in the buyout of Clearwire spectrum, is close to finalizing the deal, according to a Friday report. Two sources who wish to remain anonymous said the buy could happen as early as this winter, though T-Mobile may be holding out to get a better deal. The carrier also needs to fund the deal, with some suggesting to Bloonberg that it may do so by selling its US-based telecommunications towers.
The GSM Association tonight discussed plans for a new, embedded SIM card that could simplify activation and allow new devices. A "task force" of carriers that includes AT&T, T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom and Verizon hopes to replace the SIM card on some devices with a built-in design that would allow remote activation. Users could not only start using a phone without having to enter a store but could see 3G or 4G devices where even a micro SIM was too small, such as a camera or an MP3 player.
The European commissioner in charge of telecommunications, Neelie Kroes, on Thursday said the continent will take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to introducing new net neutrality rules. Europe has enough legal safeguards to prevent telephone operators from managing consumer access to the web, the commissioner told the New York Times. As such, the bloc will not be involved in the numerous network neutrality debates ongoing in North America and Europe.
Verizon Wireless is reported to have denied considering buying spectrum from Clearwire. This comes after several reports maintained the carrier, along with competitors AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Sprint and Time Warner Cable are vying to buy mobile airwaves in an auction from Clearwire. The seller is trying to raise at least $2.5 billion to help build out its 4G network by selling as much as 40MHz of spectrum in each market.
Clearwire is looking to raise between $2.5 and $5 billion by selling wireless spectrum in an auction, according to a Wednesday report. Potential buyers include AT&T, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, Time Warner Cable and Clearwire's majority owner, Sprint, said unnamed sources for Bloomberg. Bidding is currently in the second round, with Deutsche Bank managing the negotiations.
T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom this evening confirmed that its CEO Rene Obermann was a suspect in a German corruption investigation. He and seven other targets are being checked for involvement in a scheme that allegedly saw DT refuse to pay dividends to Macedonia's Makedonski Telekom in 2005 unless it agreed to shut out the possibility of competition. The investigation, started in Bonn, was prompted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission after it wanted help for its own probe, which hasn't considered Obermann as a suspect.
The chief of T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom, Rene Obermann, argued in a German interview today that Apple and Google should pay more for higher-quality mobile data. iPhones and Android smartphones use much more data on the network, the executive told Manager Magazin, and should carry an extra surcharge if they need an especially fast or reliable network for music or video. Talks are already underway with at least Google.
AT&T has "temporarily suspended" iPhone 4 and 8GB iPhone 3GS pre-orders, according to a message on the carrier's website. The company has been unable to cope with the demand so far, resulting in many web requests timing out. On top of this it has received numerous complaints of privacy leaks, which involved the wrong person's information being displayed after logging into an account.
T-Mobile's US branch showed signs of upheaval today as its chief executive Robert Dotson said he would leave the company next year. He intends to resign as CEO in February 2011 and will stay on as a regular board of directors member until May. The move was billed by Dotson as long in coming and an opportunity for him to spend more time with family as well as to look into "entirely new and unique challenges."
US wireless provider T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, may form a partnership with a New York hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Partners, to roll out 4G service. The financial firm is known to be planning launching an LTE network, as it owns radio spectrum, but unnamed sources for FT indicate it wants to talk to the carrier about cooperating on the build out. The talks are said to be early and with no decisions having been made.
T-Mobile USA owner Deutsche Telekom AG has said in an interview that the US operations will not be sold or merge, but that the company is committed to growing the carrier, the WSJ reported this week. Late last year, an analyst group predicted that T-Mobile was likely to merge with Sprint, and become a rival to AT&T, the second-largest provider in the US.
Deutsche Telekom AG is allegedly considering an initial public offering of its T-Mobile USA division, according to a Wall Street Journal report. People familiar with the matter claim the move is intended to appease shareholders who have voiced frustration over the company's lackluster stock performance.
Amid rumors that Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company, is considering a takeover bid for the US rival Sprint, sources claim the German company's biggest shareholders are preparing to force changes, according to the Financial Times. Although both companies have remained mum on any private negotiations, the report corroborates earlier suggestions that D Telekom has become frustrated with the performance of its US subsidiary.
T-Mobile's root company Deutsche Telekom is more seriously considering buying Sprint in what could be a major shakeup of the US cellphone industry, according to sources. The two have been rumored in talks for such a deal for over a year, but tips to the Telegraph now have the German firm bringing in financial advisers from Deutsche Bank to evaluate the possibility of making a bid for the ailing but still larger American provider. An offer could be made as soon as within a few weeks, the insiders said, though the likely terms of the deal haven't been mentioned.
German iPhone owners have been banned from fully exploiting the recently-released Skype app, writes the Associated Press. In spite of the title being legally available to download from the country's App Store, T-Mobile warns that it considers use of the app on its network a violation of contract. All VoIP services on the iPhone have been blocked since 2007, notes a representative for T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom.
The German division of T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, received a substantial boost from the iPhone in its third financial quarter, according to a results report. T-Mobile Deutschland is said to have gained 271,000 net subscribers in Q3, a full 82 percent better than in the same period of 2007. The company describes the iPhone 3G as a "significant driver" of new subscriptions, and notes that it was "in extremely high demand" during the July launch phase. 401,000 German subscribers were recorded in all, and Deutsche Telekom's total net income for the quarter was $1.52 billion versus last year's $1.37 billion.
The FCC investigation into the Verizon Wireless and Alltel Corp. tie-up and therefore foreign-controlled assets in other telecommunications companies, which could spell trouble for T-Mobile for something it has done back in 2001, according to a WSJ report. On October 17, the FCC sent a warning letter to T-Mobile, advising it that the acquisition by Germany's Deutsche Telekom was not performed under the mandated 20 percent voting stock threshold. The FCC found Deutsche Telekom has a 30 percent, non-controlling stake in T-Mobile, and the letter is asking T-Mobile to come up with a solution that would comply with the 20 percent limit within 30 days.
Deutsche Telekom's wireless division, T-Mobile, has sold over 120,000 iPhone 3Gs since the device's launch on July 11th, according to the division's CEO. Hamid Akhavan claims that "expectations were surpassed," and that at least 75,000 of the phones were sold in Germany. Many people wanting one have not yet been able to obtain it though, as Akhavan notes that a backlog exists due to delivery problems.
German communications giant Deutsche Telekom is producing an e-book reader that would give customers a digital way to read the company's content, according to a report in the country's Der Spiegel newspaper. The device is seen as a bridge between too-small cellphone screens and large notebooks and would primarily serve as a conduit for print media. Unlike Amazon's Kindle, there would be no Internet-only content like websites or RSS feeds, and articles would more closely reflect the print versions. In exchange, the unnamed device would be simpler to use than its American rival.
The iPhone will likely remain a T-Mobile exclusive in Germany, says the company's CEO. "We have a very good relationship with Apple...at least in Germany it is exclusive, and we expect it to remain as such," Hamid Akhavan is quoted as saying by Reuters. The comment comes in response to a string of non-exclusive deals in countries such as Italy and Austria, reversing a trend in which Apple insisted that any country with the iPhone have only one official carrier. Other regions currently operating on exclusive contracts include the US, the UK, Ireland and France.
T-Mobile has sold over 100,000 iPhones in Germany, according to the head of the carrier's parent company, Deutsche Telekom. CEO Rene Obermann made the statement Thursday as a follow-up to statistics from January, which indicated that it had sold 70,000 iPhones since the device's local debut in early November of 2007. While the figure points to a relative slowdown in sales, T-Mobile board member Hamid Akhavan says that this is "about in line" with corporate targets.
T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom is seriously considering merging with or taking over Sprint, claims the German national magazine Der Spiegel. A continued weakening of US currency values, combined with worsening results at Sprint, is reportedly leading the European company to investigate transactions that would help T-Mobile USA gain ground in the US market and better compete against AT&T. The opportunity is rare and would cost Deutsche Telekom less than it did to buy VoiceStream in 2001 and assume its role as one of the largest American carriers, according to the report.
The next country to receive the iPhone will be Austria, says the chief executive of T-Mobile. Hamid Akhavan announced the news on Tuesday, according to Reuters, explaining that iPhones would go on sale sometime within the first half of 2008. The release will be notable for two reasons: first by making Austria only the fourth country in Europe to officially adopt the Apple device, but secondly for giving the same carrier control in two separate regions. T-Mobile was the original non-American vendor of the iPhone, launching in Germany on November 9th. Over 70,000 units have been sold there to date. T-Mobile is owned by Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, says that some 70,000 German iPhone subscribers have been added in the 11 weeks since the product's debut in the country on November 9th of last year. "The iPhone is by far the most sold multimedia device in T-Mobile's portfolio," according to Philipp Humm, the head of T-Mobile Germany. Reuters notes however that this figure is roughly equivalent to the number of iPhones sold by Orange in France, which only began its sales on November 28th.
