Late last year, with less than two weeks to go until the calendar read 2012, AT&T announced that they were no longer interested in purchasing T-Mobile. Anyone with a hint of common sense knew that the deal was a bad idea since the moment it was announced back in March 2011. Thanks to the contract that T-Mobile signed with AT&T, T-Mobile didn’t walk away empty handed. No sir, they got around $3 billion worth of cash, some spectrum, and a roaming agreement. That being said Deutsche Telekom, who owns T-Mobile, wasn’t really happy. They wanted AT&T’s proposed $39 billion so they could invest it in European networks.
Now just because AT&T didn’t get what they wanted doesn’t mean that they’re going to stop trying. They really want spectrum, and since the government isn’t selling any … well, it’s time to buy some. Enter Dish Network, a company everyone knows as a discount satellite television provider. They happen to own 40 MHz worth of spectrum in the 2 GHz band, spectrum that they want to use to build an LTE-Advanced network. In fact, rumor has is that Dish Network is now interested in buying T-Mobile so they can compliment their data network with a voice network that’s already up and running. This has made AT&T panic, and now there’s a contradicting rumor that says AT&T will buy Dish Network. Confused? Don’t be. Earlier today Joseph Clayton, the CEO of Dish Network, said he was “open to all possible options” in terms of either buying T-Mobile or being bought out by AT&T. Seeing as how he’s the head of a publicly traded company, you have no idea how much pressure he’ll be under from investors to simply cash out.
We’d rather have Dish Network grow a pair of balls and compete against the duopoly that is AT&T and Verizon, but to be perfectly honest we’d understand it if they just took the money and retired to a warm and sunny country.