Your guide to the inevitable death of T-Mobile

Dan Seitz Contributing Writer, Tech

First of all, if you’re a T-Mobile subscriber, we’re sorry. Do you need a hug?

T-Mobile has long been the off-brand cola of mobile providers. It gets the best phones last, its network isn’t great (it literally does not have the bandwidth to carry the iPhone), but it was at least decently cheap and offered an alternative to people who hated the crappy network of AT&T, the terrible civil rights record of Verizon, and the general crappiness of Sprint. Unfortunately, Sprint turned it around, Verizon turned out to actually have a few ethical scruples (being the only carrier that doesn’t use spy software on your Android, it turns out), and AT&T… well… it had the iPhone.

So T-Mobile’s owner, Deutsche Telekom, went to merge with AT&T. That…isn’t going so well.

We could bore you with legal garbage, but the shorthand is that if the FCC doesn’t just flat out veto the merger, the Department of Justice will. So, if you were hoping to be on an AT&T plan…not happening.

The second option is that T-Mobile just keeps on keepin’ on. Which is also unlikely since the entire reason Deutsche Telekom wanted to sell it was a belief that they couldn’t compete. So that’s out.

That leaves one of two options: T-Mobile is sold to somebody who currently has nothing whatsoever to do with mobile communications; or T-Mobile is stripped for parts like a Honda Civic in a bad neighborhood in Camden.

Of the two, the latter is more likely. Here’s why: there’s only one company that wants T-Mobile otherwise, and it’s Dish Network. The problem is, they’re only interested if their own wireless spectrum that they bought is licensed by the FCC. That’s always a big if, although the FCC probably likes the idea of T-Dish a lot more than AT&T-Mobile.

But, selling it for parts means AT&T can just buy the T-Mobile assets it wants, and the rest can be sold to regional or national carriers. If we had to put down money, we’re pretty sure that most T-Mobile customers are going to be sent to the welcoming arms of Sprint.

Either way, though, by the end of next year, T-Mobile will be just a digital memory. Maybe the hot chick in their ads can get more work in advertising. How about lingerie?

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