Deutsche Telekom to build up T-Mobile U.S. network

Up until Matt's message, no one has mentioned Rural Cellular Corporation, in Northern New England, they are under the UNICEL name, which T-Mobile roams on up in NH (once at Exit 15 on I-89 and after the dead (no) service between Exits 3 and 15) and in Vermont.

 

It might be in the realm of possibility but European providers rarely let go of a network they built up or acquired for a heavy price. T-Mobile, Vodafone and Hutchison Whompoa (they own Orange) are a couple of the major players who are represented on worldwide scale.

The question is whether BellSouth really has the desire to let go of their 40% stake in Cingular and if so, would the FCC/federal government permit it?

 

Verizon would flip places where they have PCS (like WI) if T-mo took down USCC's CDMA. Or, interestingly enough, If T-MO did buy USCC, would they leave the CDMA up for roaming traffic? HMM. They cold pull an Alltel. Alltel said a while back that they intended to start deploying GSM as a secondary technology. I often wonder if USCC might do the same. In the case that they did do that, it would make them all the more attractive for a GSM carrier to acquire them.

 

Wow, that is interesting if they start doing that, it would seem expensive to put up a 2nd network just for roaming revenue, unless it would bring in enough money to justify the cost or would sweeten a possible sale to either a CDMA or GSM carrier, that much.

 

If Alltel was really interested in keeping GSM, then they wouldn't be divesting Western Wireless' int'l networks in Austria (tele.ring - sold to T-Mobile Austria) and Ireland (Meteor - sold to EirComm). At least that doesn't make practical sense.

 

If ALLTEL, who until the WW/Cell One merges was purely CDMA in all it's markets, would have taken down GSM in the ex-WW markets, many, many GSM roamers would have suddenly had No Service...that would have been a great incentive to make people switch to CDMA, lol, and would have requried GSM networks like Cingular and t-Mobile to build out their own rural networks.

 

Yes, as I'd read, they'd planned on putting up GSM on existing network in places where there are no GMS carriers, giving them a rural monopoly on GSM roaming revenue. I like it.

 

That may be true for the US but it doesn't quite cover their policy for getting rid of potential GSM roaming revenue for areas outside of the US. I would have expected them to hold onto to both networks since those were relatively built out.

 

I think it was smart for Alltel to divest it's non-US assets. They need to focus on there network here at home before trying to expand into other foreign markets. Like Cingular they got rid of AT&T non-US investments. Now they are focusing on there network stateside. I think when this is complete then Cingular will make an international play in the market.

 

That makes sense if they want to free up some money to make some hefty investments in their US network. I don't see Cingular or any other US carrier getting into the European market again. T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone have a solid grip on most of Western and Southern Europe.