Here Come the T-Mobile Layoffs → Bad, but...

Wouldn't have many more employees lost their jobs due to the redundancy of AT&T and T-Mobile combining forces? I don't see how losing 526,000 subscribers could account for closing 30% of the call centers, unless 526,000 subscribers equates to 30% of T-Mobile's customer base. The real story here is T-Mobile doesn't have a major handset like the iPhone and Deutsche Telekom has been trying to unload the unit for years. Downsizing was inevitable, profit margins (if any) are shrinking.

"526,000 net subscribers and 802,000 contract plan subscribers."

It's 526,000 net, if you consider MVNO customers as part of the net. If you count just T-Mobile (I assume MVNO customers don't call T-Mobile directly for support), the loss was 580,000. Are you under the impression that prepaid subscribers, for which they added 220,000 customers in the 4th quarter don't call in for customer service? Or perhaps you don't understand what the term "net" means?

You'd think these idiots would at least ponder a spectrum sharing deal with Sprint, since they both desperately need it and could halve their costs.

Which spectrum are they going to share? I know T-mobile has some PCS spectrum that could surely help Sprint. I believe some of it is even adjacent to the Sprint G-Block that Sprint is rolling out a 5x5 LTE carrier on right now. I guess it would be pretty sweet if they combined forces, and that 5x5 LTE carrier was increased to 10x10 or more, or multiple PCS LTE carriers were introduced. T-Mobile is free to partner with Clearwire all they want, separate from Sprint.

Last Friday I joined the ranks of former T-Mobile subscribers. I was carrying both an iPhone 4S on Sprint from work and an old Motorola V360 on T-Mobile. All calls were going to the iPhone so it seemed time to cancel the T-Mobile service and save $38/month.