Telecom & Wireless

T-Mobile Downsizes

 US-based T-Mobile unit, part of Deutsche Telekom,  has begun to look like Sprint. The No.4 wireless carrier in the US, has found it barely survive in a race dominated by AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless. The Germany parent hoped to exit the US when AT&T offered to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion.

The federal government blocked the plan. T-Mobile will lay off 5% of its work force. That will not be the end of it. Even larger rival Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) has been targeted as a candidate for Chapter 11. It has debt problems that T-Mobile does not. However, scale has become essential in a US market in which the total number of wireless subscribers is not growing any more and firms must steal one another’s’ customers, and T-Mobile has the least scale of all.

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