I just caught wind of a Forbes article that spoke with Sprint CEO Dan Hesse following Sprint’s fourth-quarter earnings call as saying the end of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger talks “…means many more options for Sprint than we would have had if the merger had gone through.” Hesse follows up that statement by saying that T-Mobile’s spectrum was back on “the table,” though he wouldn’t elaborate any more beyond that.
Analysts have long suggested a Sprint/T-Mobile network sharing agreement as such a move would give T-Mobile access to a 4G/LTE network while giving Sprint more spectrum and capacity, possibly distancing themselves from their Clearwire relationship.
T-Mobile has also said it continues to look at small scale deals along with CEO Philip Humm telling Forbes back in January T-Mobile will show its LTE strategy the end of March. While we don’t believe Sprint is any kind of financial position to even consider a full-scale purchase of T-Mobile, a network sharing agreement is perhaps more plausible and could benefit both companies considerably.