Dish Urges FCC to Pause While Sprint Weighs Options Ergen's Game of Acquisition Chess Continues Thursday Apr 18 2013 11:13 EDT Dish Network is urging the FCC to delay an regulatory action on governing Softbank's $20 Billion acquisition offer for Sprint, arguing that the agency shouldn't act while Sprint is pondering which offer to accept. "Because Dish’s merger proposal is currently before the Sprint board of directors, the question of which transaction the commission ultimately should be deciding is unsettled," Dish said in a filing with the FCC. Dish proposed a $25.5 Billion offer for Sprint on Monday, issuing a press statement that a combined Sprint/Dish would be capable of offering "fully-integrated, nationwide bundle of in- and out-of-home video, broadband and voice services." Sprint is currently weighing the offer, and it's expected that SoftBank -- hungry for the potential growth into U.S. markets -- will propose a counter bid. |
  ropeguru
Premium Member
join:2001-01-25
Mechanicsville, VA |
ropeguru
Premium Member
2013-Apr-18 11:52 am
Not up to the FCC...If the FCC grants this request they will be stepping WAY out of their jurisdiction. I would think the decision to delay the decision to delay the Softbank offer should be up to Sprint's Board. They have the ability to delay or cancel anything they want unless they are in a legal and binding agreement already.
Dish is completely wrong to even request this and is even more evidence showing that our political system is nothing more than a buch of pawns for corporations. | |
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josephf
Member
2013-Apr-18 11:59 am
Re: Not up to the FCC...As long as a business can justify anything as being in the "interest of shareholders", they can commit murder. | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...said by josephf:As long as a business can justify anything as being in the "interest of shareholders", they can commit murder.
And the Dish 'offer' is essentially a takeover bid directed only to shareholders. It was unsolicited, they never worked with Sprint (the company execs or board) before making the offer. The shareholders may go for the quick buck. This is what is sad about public companies in control by shareholders who go for the top dollar rather than what is best for the company long term. | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...And merging with Dish is bad, short term or long. I just dumped Dish and have seen their evil ways  . Wanting to charge me to send back their equipment, climb on my roof and removed the LNBF and even telling me to return all the hookup cables. Like that was going to "discourage" me from terminating my services. Long story short, Dish and Sprint together will set a new standard for crappy customer services (as if it couldn't sink lower). JMO  | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...Yeah, went through that, albeit in a lesser way. For me, it was that I had to call them several times to get them to send me the return box. Fortunately, my dish was mounted in the ground, so I could easily access it. But you better believe I kept my UPS shipping receipt and the printout showing who signed for the package at Dish. In fact, that stuff may still be in a drawer of my desk, and that was sent back almost 3 years ago.
I think Dish's problem is that Charlie likes to pinch every penny. And while being frugal is good, you can overdo it, and that's what he does. As my mom used to say, there's a difference between being frugal and being cheap, and, unfortunately, Dish falls into the latter category. | |
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join:2012-03-15 |
to tc1uscg
Actually Dish has been more then reasonable here, I've even successfully haggled with them for a better deal on the bundle they are doing with TDS metrocom to provide TV phone and DSL service in the area and have always offer up something interesting if you call up and complain that "as an existing customer of * years, why can't I get XYZ that you are offering to new subscribers?" last time it was all the premium channels for 3 months and $10 off the bill for a year, this on top of the already reduced by $9 bill I got out of them like 4 years ago.
So either you are full of it or are just a terrible negotiator. | |
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tc1uscg
Member
2013-Apr-19 10:12 am
Re: Not up to the FCC...Well intok, maybe some of us have a life and get tired of spending 30 minutes on the phone every couple months trying to shave 10 bucks off our bill only to repeat the process again later  . Oh, I called alright. I got my discount starting in December. Then funny thing, in Jan, the price of having their boxes went up and so did a few other things. So much for the discount . Bill went from 86 to 112 in 3 months. Unlike you, I don't live to "negotiate" for 3 months of HBO and have to remember to call them up a month before it expires to cancel it or spend another couple hours trying to get the bill strait because they charged you for services you cancelled. Therefore, I dumped the dish for reliable, more capable service at the same price and guess what $hitmate, I don't have to call them next month to "negotiate" anything. Mater in fact, I have 2 years (and no contract). And after having this really cool media center sitting next to me, I won't be b1tching if they raise the cost a few bucks to have it.  | |
| | | | | | | intok (banned)
join:2012-03-15 |
intok (banned)
Member
2013-Apr-19 3:26 pm
Re: Not up to the FCC...Who said I haggled for myself? My parents are retired and thus living on a fixed income, but aren't terribly good at haggling. Shaving nearly $200 a year off the bill is worth the 10 minutes on the phone it takes once a year or 2 to do it.
Everyone has a spare 10 every day minutes where they aren't doing a damn thing.
Every company raise their prices, unfortunately most people don't push back. We'll assuredly see you complaining about your new TV service in a year or 2 after they too raise their rates. If all you are to do is whine about it please get out. | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...Nope. My rates won't change for 2 years. The price on renting the boxes might change and expected but not 20, 30bucks overnight. From my experiences, Comcast is better at cutting you some slack then Dish, DirectTV or SirrusXM. See the pattern? | |
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| | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT |
to xenophon
Pairing the two companies together would be good for everyone though... | |
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tc1uscg
Member
2013-Apr-19 10:40 am
Re: Not up to the FCC...said by BiggA:Pairing the two companies together would be good for everyone though...
How so? And who is this everyone? Dish? They need a phone company to throw it's spectrum at. I doubt Sprint really needs it but they could be the deciding factor. I don't think it would be good for the consumer. It could only be good for Dish. They should just buy up MetroPCS and TMo and move on. | |
| | | | | | intok (banned)
join:2012-03-15 |
intok (banned)
Member
2013-Apr-19 3:28 pm
Re: Not up to the FCC...said by tc1uscg:said by BiggA:Pairing the two companies together would be good for everyone though...
How so? And who is this everyone? Dish? They need a phone company to throw it's spectrum at. I doubt Sprint really needs it but they could be the deciding factor. I don't think it would be good for the consumer. It could only be good for Dish. They should just buy up MetroPCS and TMo and move on. IIRC they want sprint as their spectrum is in the adjacent bracket to theirs. It would be interesting if they used to to bring TV service to the phones or mobile net far faster then anyone else. | |
| | | | | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT |
to tc1uscg
Triple-play and internet competition. DirecTV would be in trouble if DISH did this... | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...said by BiggA:Triple-play and internet competition. DirecTV would be in trouble if DISH did this...
Do you have Sprint? If you do, then you have seen what's happened to 3G speeds and soon, LTE will be right there with it. Dog slow. Sprint has done ZERO buildout on the last mile. They are updating it's MSO's (switches) and antennas but that last mile is under the control of the likes of AT&T, Verizon or whatever local Telco that controls the pipe from the POP to the handoff at the tower. And if you do a little checking, you will see other cable companies have TRIED to sell cell phone service with it's video service (Time warner, Comcast, Roadrunner to name 3 that I know of) and it was a epic fail. I know, All dish can bring to the table is money that sprint needs and last time I seen anything about it, Sprint doesn't need to spectrum (yet ). They can get (money) that from Softbank. Pitting Dish against the likes of Comcast, non of them are anything to write home about except, in my area, Cable companies are more reliable then Dish or DTV. Just sayin | |
| | | | | | | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT  ·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68
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BiggA
Premium Member
2013-Apr-24 5:23 pm
Re: Not up to the FCC...They could build out for home internet with LTE on Clear's spectrum and other chunks of spectrum they have...
Plus there's that cable company in Florida that was doing the MVDDS thing that was working well, although IIRC, it was LOS only.
Wireless home internet isn't really the future, but it could help push bandwidth out into rural markets where there's nothing, or exurban markets with a lack of competition and relatively low density. | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...said by BiggA:They could build out for home internet with LTE on Clear's spectrum and other chunks of spectrum they have...
Plus there's that cable company in Florida that was doing the MVDDS thing that was working well, although IIRC, it was LOS only.
Wireless home internet isn't really the future, but it could help push bandwidth out into rural markets where there's nothing, or exurban markets with a lack of competition and relatively low density.
People keep thinking LTE is the magic pill for video. Well, the spectrum may be, but the pipe isn't. If you don't have the network in place to handle it, you get what many of use in my market have been dealing with. 3G is so slow it should be downright renamed back to 1x. When 3G/EVDO and Rev A were deployed, things worked well at first. Then when everyone started getting newer phones, it starting dragging butt. Max bars means nothing anymore. Sprint's network can hardly handle current phone use much less video. They will need LOTS of improvements before this is any kind of threat to cable. And video over cellular is not new. Sprint tried it in Detroit in 2002. but it failed to penetrate those nice big elm tree's that seem to be all over the place around here. Poor guys spent over an hour on my roof trying to get a usable signal but couldn't. But go back to 1999, Sprint started the ION build out with high hopes to provide video on twisted pair but after dumping 2 billion down that hole, failed again. Wimax? We see how's that going (went). Do you see a pattern here with Sprint? LTE may be the ONLY large network venture they finish. And Sprint will get nothing out of getting in bed with Dish (except pregnant). JMO  | |
| | | | | | | | | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT ·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68
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BiggA
Premium Member
2013-Apr-25 6:47 pm
Re: Not up to the FCC...Wow, did you even read my post? I was suggesting a triple play with LTE providing internet and phone and DISH's DBS system providing the video.
I was thinking on the 2600 band where they have a metric crapload of bandwidth, and can push the cell size down, and crank the bandwidth up like crazy. | |
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Re: Not up to the FCC...said by BiggA:Wow, did you even read my post? I was suggesting a triple play with LTE providing internet and phone and DISH's DBS system providing the video.
I was thinking on the 2600 band where they have a metric crapload of bandwidth, and can push the cell size down, and crank the bandwidth up like crazy.
Yes, I did, but bandwidth doesn't mean anything when still using the same T1's that don't seem to handle 3G needs. Till Sprint cleans up it's backhaul issues, 2600 or whatever isn't going to mean fiddly squat. | |
| | | | | | | | | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2013-May-4 10:31 am
Re: Not up to the FCC...That's a relatively minor issue compared to the rest of it. And Sprint has not been known to have backhaul issues. Their issues on non-NV towers is that they don't have LTE, and they don't have enough cards to put enough channels of EVDO up. | |
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tc1uscg
Member
2013-May-22 10:29 am
Re: Not up to the FCC...said by BiggA:That's a relatively minor issue compared to the rest of it. And Sprint has not been known to have backhaul issues. Their issues on non-NV towers is that they don't have LTE, and they don't have enough cards to put enough channels of EVDO up.
No, they have always had a chock point that as far as it's customers are concerned, was the backhaul. To us that worked in the switch sites, we called it "that last mile", which was controlled by the LEC's. Sprint may have good speeds to the pops, which were connected to it's MAN rings in most areas, but all that bandwidth didn't you any good if you (Sprint) showed up with 18 wheelers full of dirt to the pop and only paid for a pickup truck to haul it to the tower. That's the way it works in my area where AT&T owns/provides most of the access to Sprint. If I had a dollar for everytime I opened a trouble ticket with AT&T for T1 access issues, I would have retired 5 years ago and not left the company 3 years ago. | |
| | | | | | | | | | BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2013-May-22 6:16 pm
Re: Not up to the FCC...But more backhaul is useless until you can put up LTE or more EVDO channels. And T-Mobile has pretty good speeds in many areas, even Verizon-dominated NYC, and Verizon does well where AT&T in the local incumbent and visa-versa. | |
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It isn't just about money with these thingsDish may be offering a sweeter package than Softbank is, but the number of dollars may not be the deciding factor. If the deals include stock in the combined company, Sprint shareholders will want to look at which company--Dish or Softbank--will produce the stronger company after the acquisition. If the feeling is that a Sprint/Softbank deal with create a stronger company with more possibilities for stock appreciation, then they'll go with that deal, even if there's initially less money on the table.
I know that Dish doesn't want to tip its hand in terms of what it would do with the combined resources of a Dish/Sprint merger, but it needs to make a case that it can create something that's truly innovative and that cam make Sprint's shareholders get excited and want to be part of such a venture. | |
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Re: It isn't just about money with these thingsThe thing with SoftBank that Sprint is overlooking and so is the public (as it was an article here linked a few days ago)- is in Japan, Softbank does not even have a 4G network yet, but claim they're a top company there? They're still on 3G and haven't even started to build a 4G network anywhere- not even Wimax. Talk about a company that doesn't have its act together. They want to expand to the US; well they need to get their network together back home first before we send more jobs out of this country. And that's the only thing Softbank/Sprint is going to do. Outsource,outsource outsource. They're all but killed the Sprint Wholesale side of the company in Sprint stores and moved everything to gas stations and such. Talk about a way to go already. | |
| | | PittsPgh
Premium Member
join:2003-08-21
Pittsburgh, PA |
PittsPgh
Premium Member
2013-Apr-19 1:44 am
Re: It isn't just about money with these things4G LTE Flat-rate Data Program | iPhone 5 | SoftBank » www.softbank.jp/mobile/i ··· te_flat/Vision | SoftBank Mobile Corp. » www.softbankmobile.co.jp ··· /vision/Speed To improve the utilization efficiency of the frequency, SoftBank Mobile is working diligently to realize next-generation high-speed data communication services capable of transmitting large volumes of data. From February 2012, SoftBank Mobile has been using the AXGP (a communication standard which has high compatibility with TD LTE) network built by Wireless City Planning Inc. to offer SoftBank 4G, which boasts the industry's fastest*2 downlink speeds at up to 110 Mbps*3*4. On September 21, 2012, SoftBank Mobile launched SoftBank 4G LTE, a high-speed data communication service using FDD-LTE, and the lineup of smartphones and tablets compatible with these new services is continuing to grow. [Notes] *2Among mobile data communication services being offered in Japan as of May 29, 2012, based on published data from other companies and industry standard values *3Communication speed is subject to the service area. Due to best effort delivery, deterioration of speed or disconnection may occur depending on network conditions or communication environments. *4Communication speed is subject to the specification of devices I'm on Sprint, I think I'd rather have SoftBank buy into Sprint. BTW: SoftBank is looking fo rthe spectrum like everyone else. Dish, well they just want to create bundle plans and make themselves look better. IMO Paul Extra Note, Sprint LTE is up in Pittsburgh, West of the city airport area. about a week now. | |
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Re: It isn't just about money with these thingsThey can claim all they want. Other sources state otherwise that no network exists.
And just because Sprint has LTE in Pitts is nothing. Let them deploy in actual cities that matter stead of BFE of Texas. Maybe they should focus on the top metro areas first as TMO, T, and VZW did. | |
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Re: It isn't just about money with these thingsGuess L.A., Bay Area, NYC are not metro enough for you... Sprint has LTE there but not officially launched. Been getting LTE in LA metro and Bay Area for over a few months now. edit LA officially launched yesterday... » community.sprint.com/baw ··· -markets | |
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Re: It isn't just about money with these thingssaid by clos000:Guess L.A., Bay Area, NYC are not metro enough for you... Sprint has LTE there but not officially launched. Been getting LTE in LA metro and Bay Area for over a few months now.
edit LA officially launched yesterday...
»community.sprint.com/baw ··· -markets
You have to take that guy with a large grain of salt. He's generally pretty clueless. | |
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to TBBroadband
said by TBBroadband:They can claim all they want. Other sources state otherwise that no network exists. Blah, blah, blah. Why don't you cite these "other sources"? | |
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to TBBroadband
said by TBBroadband:The thing with SoftBank that Sprint is overlooking and so is the public (as it was an article here linked a few days ago)- is in Japan, Softbank does not even have a 4G network yet, but claim they're a top company there? They're still on 3G and haven't even started to build a 4G network anywhere- not even Wimax. Talk about a company that doesn't have its act together. They want to expand to the US; well they need to get their network together back home first before we send more jobs out of this country. And that's the only thing Softbank/Sprint is going to do. Outsource,outsource outsource. They're all but killed the Sprint Wholesale side of the company in Sprint stores and moved everything to gas stations and such. Talk about a way to go already.
When Sprint took 51% of Clearwire, Sprint didn't have a 4g network either. Then, they turned tail and went to LTE. Having worked for Sprint for 10 years (no longer thought), I've NEVER seen them get into a big expenditure and see it to the end before pulling the plug. Look at ION. WiMax was to wireless what ION was to the wireline (don't forget Nextel and iDen too). ION was 2 billion smackers flushed down the $hithole. Sadly, Sprint lost touch with it's roots. As far as Sprints network? Sprint couldn't get it's collective network crap together if someone did it for them. Dish? Give me a break. Do you REALLY think they will come to the party with a magic pill? Sprint needs money, not a surgeon to come in and rip the company up. I see this as another MCI/WorldCom purchase. Sprint needs to back away and just take SB's money and fix what they have neglected since they tried to merge CDMA and iDen when they took over Nextel. | |
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mikedz4
Member
2013-Apr-19 10:02 am
still think dish and directv will merge soonI still think dish will make a bid to merge with DirecTV sometime this year or next. | |
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Re: still think dish and directv will merge soonsaid by mikedz4:I still think dish will make a bid to merge with DirecTV sometime this year or next.
I tend to agree that it will happen sooner or later. | |
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. Wanting to charge me to send back their equipment, climb on my roof and removed the LNBF and even telling me to return all the hookup cables. Like that was going to "discourage" me from terminating my services. Long story short, Dish and Sprint together will set a new standard for crappy customer services (as if it couldn't sink lower). JMO 
. Oh, I called alright. I got my discount starting in December. Then funny thing, in Jan, the price of having their boxes went up and so did a few other things. So much for the discount 
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