[LG V30 ROMs, Kernels, Recoveries, & Other Developm] ChazzMatt:
Sprint by itself is not sustainable. They are owned by Softbank, the same Japanese backer who supported the WeWork fiasco. They are in debt

$33 billion.

(Sprint’s net debt stands at $33 billion. During the latest 12-month period, that debt cost Sprint $2.4 billion in net interest expense, more than it was able to earn in operating income.)

They are trying to attract customers with 2-for-1 deals on premium phones with unlimited upgrades and cheap unlimited data. (Same way WeWork bought/leased expensive buildings and rented to customers for very low cost, free beer and daily parties -- to try to gain market share. You can only do that for so long before you have to pay your bills.) The ironic thing is all these offers aren't gaining customers en masse because of Sprint's network reputation.

Because of this ever increasing debt, if Sprint doesn't merge with T-mobile they would eventually have to declare bankruptcy or be forced to sell to some cable company like Comcast who now offers cell phone service.

Sprint was the 3rd largest carrier, but T-mobile has surpassed them and is still growing -- mostly at Sprint's expense. T-mobile doesn't need Sprint merger in order to survive, but Sprint does. T-mobile needs Sprint merger to have more size to take on AT&T and Verizon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_wireless_communications_service_providers

AT&T Mobility: 159.7 million (Q2 2019)

Verizon Wireless: 153.97 million (Q3 2018)

T-Mobile US: 83.1 million (Q2 2019)

Sprint Corporation: 54.5 million (Q1 2019)

U.S. Cellular: 5 million (Q1 2019) (not a nationwide carrier)

U.S. T-mobile is owned by German Deutsche Telekom, but after hiring John Legere a few years ago to run their U.S. operation he pulled them from the basement to be a true contender. Japanese Softbank should have done something similar but did not.

---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 AM ----------

Based on what happened with former CDMA/LTE carriers who were bought by GSM/HSPA/LTE carriers (AT&T bought Cricket, and most notably T-mobile bought MetroPCS), they will run the CDMA/LTE network for Sprint for 12-18 months, while cannibalizing all the towers they can to run on their HSPA/LTE bands. During that time you can still use your current phone (but coverage may suffer), and they will make generous offers for trade-ins for NEW T-mobile phones. After 12-18 months, they will then turn off Sprint CDMA/LTE bands and fully convert all towers to T-mobile frequencies.

This is what happened with Cricket (AT&T) and MetroPCS (T-mobile). I was a former MetroPCS customer when they were a Verizon wanna-be. They were a standalone CDMA/LTE carrier with their own towers, their own FCC licenses, etc. Where they didn't have coverage they had roaming deals with Sprint and Verizon. At one point they were the 5th largest carrier (the position U.S. Cellular is in now); there's a HUGE drop-off between 4th and 5th.. ;) I was not with MetroPCS when T-mobile bought them -- but I followed the developments and they mirrored exactly what happened with Cricket (who was MetroPCS main competitor) when AT&T bought them.

They guarantee to FCC they will continue to operate the bought network for "reasonable" amount of time while they entice customers to change over to new network phones. During that time, they start utilizing as many towers/spectrum they can of the former carrier. So, "Sprint" network coverage will NOT get better, and may actually get worse. After about 18 months, then they pull the plug on old network and you are forced to go buy new phone (with still-generous trade in offer).

At that point, then you have to decide if you want to be REAL T-mobile customer or change over to AT&T or Verizon or some carrier MVNO which utilizes one of those carriers.