T-mobile

MetroPCs wants its shareholders to vote thumb's up on the T-Mobile merger.

In a letter sent today by MetroPCS to its investors, the company said it could provide no assurance that it would offer better shareholder value remaining as a standalone carrier, according to Reuters. If approved, the deal would see MetroPCs declare a 1-for-2 reverse stock split and give its stockholders $1.5 billion back in cash.

Investors would actually own 26 percent of the combined company, while T-Mobile USA's parent Deutsche Telekom would wind up with the remaining 74 percent.

The letter urging approval of the … Read more

Oh, T-Mobile has gone no-contract? Yes, this is a big step for a major national carrier, but for me, it's whoop-de-doo. I've been no-contract for a year already. Plus, I have access to that big, juicy Verizon network that lets me make calls from the middle of the mountains in New Mexico. I'm a customer of Page Plus Cellular, a company that resells Verizon's data and talk-time network. I can quit anytime, with no fear of penalties.

Now that T-Mobile got all coy and dumped the contracts, it feels a bit to me like discovering a cool underground band and then having it hit the Billboard charts and hearing its best song on a McDonald's commercial. I can't really pull off a hipper-than-thou attitude about this, though. After all, I am making some sacrifices to ride the no-contract bandwagon. Here are the pros and cons as I see them. … Read more

The big cell carriers have had a pretty entrenched way of doing business for a long time. Offer a big phone discount, tie customers in for a two-year contract. T-Mobile made waves this past week by rolling out a no-contract approach to plans. On top of that news, the company announced it was bringing in the iPhone 5.

Suddenly, consumers have the prospect of buying a no-contract iPhone through one of the major carriers. This does come with some caveats. Pricing will be a bit different than we've all come to expect. There will be an up-front fee for … Read more

A prominent organization that advises major shareholders in public companies how they should vote in corporate elections has told MetroPCS owners to vote against the T-Mobile merger.

Institutional Shareholder Services wrote to shareholders yesterday, saying that seeing their company merge with T-Mobile would not be in their best interests. According to The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the note, ISS was especially concerned with the way the market has responded since the deal was announced.

"In light of the negative market response to this transaction (shares are down 14.4 percent since announcement), the lower equity … Read more

AT&T said today it would begin taking pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S4, which it is pricing at $249.99 with a two-year contract.

Eager customers can place their order starting April 16. AT&T hasn't yet announced when the smartphone would actually hit stores, and a representative declined to provide a specific date.

The $249.99 price tag is slightly higher than the standard flagship phone, which typically retails at $199.99. But Samsung and its carrier partners are hoping that the Galaxy brand, the improved specifications, and the strong buzz behind the product will … Read more

T-Mobile shook up the wireless industry this week with the introduction of its new no-contract service plans. But is the service really a good value for consumers compared to what the other big guys are offering?

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I answer that very question. A reader wants to know if he should ditch Verizon's wireless service for T-Mobile. While some people seem to balk at the notion that wireless consumers will have to "pay"for their smartphones under these new T-Mobile plans, I do the math to explain why even buying a device at … Read more

T-Mobile's salty, spirited launch of its better-late-than-never LTE network and new contract-free ethos may have felt like a sudden surge come from nowhere, but in fact, it was a well-calculated and slowly calibrated, years-long effort to save an ailing network.

Truth is, the fiery, passionate T-Mobile we saw during its "Uncarrier" event this week wouldn't have been possible without some failures and careful planning. T-Mobile's prognosis is also buoyed by an imminent clinch success: the federally approved purchase of prepaid carrier MetroPCS (the still hasn't been fully approved.)

T-Mobile … Read more

You got me to take a second look at you, today, T-Mobile.

Your new "Simple Choice" calling plan sounded far more attractive to me than the idea that I could buy an iPhone 5 on installments, without a contract. Unfortunately, that second look left me with a bad impression. It's all about the word "unlimited."

When I went to your "Uncarrier" page, where you talked about how you weren't going to act like a wireless carrier anymore, I was optimistic, especially about the Simple Choice calling plan:

Unlimited talk, text, and Web, … Read more

Today, T-Mobile hyped how much easier bringing phones to its new network will be. As it turns out, however, it isn't as simple as you'd think.

Here's the deal. T-Mobile is in the middle of three major wireless transitions. Besides ripping up mandatory two-year contracts, the carrier is building a new 4G LTE network. If that wasn't enough, T-Mobile also is migrating its older 3.5G data service from the AWS band (1700/2100) where it currently lives over to the 1,900MHz GSM band.

But that's not all. T-Mobile is using that freed-up AWS … Read more