Thread by @modestproposal1

“Justice officials met Wednesday with Comcast and Charter over their possible interest in the airwaves and a potential role as a fourth wireless competitor”

That’s more concrete than I would’ve expected

“Comcast and Charter, the two largest U.S. cable operators, told Justice Department officials they would bid on certain parts of the wireless business that might be divested as a condition of the deal, the people said”

Meanwhile:

“Amazon is considering buying Boost mainly for an attached wholesale deal that would allow the buyer to use T-Mobile’s wireless network for at least six years”

Yesterday’s story said the DOJ wants

“T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. to lay the groundwork for a new wireless carrier -- with its own network”

So we’ve got Cable JV and Amazon as bidders for Boost + Network agreement + spectrum. That’s pretty serious groundwork that would be laid. 🤔

If that’s the price to get the deal done, TMUS has to do the calculation of whether empowering either of those two (or DISH) is worth the synergies + scale from Sprint. If not, they know Sprint is going to file and someone is going to end up owning the operating assets anyway.

So it seems to me the calculus is scale and synergies with Sprint but empowering Amazon or Cable vs stand-alone share gains in 4 player market but with Sprint filing and being auctioned off and emerging as a more viable competitor. Feels like math says door #1.

This logic assumes T-Mobile are morons

This is such a strange comment, Amazon truly is the bogeyman.

There’s no break fee, TMUS doesn’t have to sell to Amazon. If it’s a net negative, they’ll walk.

It assumes Amazon is scarier than cable. Cable owns a fiber network. Has almost 50M broadband subs.