Yahoo! News has an article on Deutsche Telekom’s dilemma regarding its T-Mobile USA unit. It appears that even with $3 billion and a billion dollars worth of spectrum, Deutsche will have a hard time making T-Mobile a viable provider of 4G services.

While the big boys, AT&T and Verizon build out their 4G LTE platforms, T-Mobile is not expected to afford the construction of its own LTE network. A partnership with AT&T would have been nice, but the allegedly forward looking U.S. Department of Justice nixed that piece of solid business judgment in the bud.

With Sprint mismanaging itself into a second tier regional carrier, and T-Mobile resigning itself to quasi 4G status, a weakened oligopoly is starting to show itself. Looks like all we have done is jacked up the transactions costs for getting us to a duopoly.

What type of restructure in our regulatory institutions would be necessary for avoiding this type of waste in the future?

An article posted on Broadband Convergence’s website discusses the downside of a split between cable and Sprint. Seems like Sprint will not be playing in the same sandbox that Verizon, Time Warner, and Comcast are playing in. That box that will see Verizon marketing the cable companies’ video programming services in exchange for Verizon obtaining spectrum licenses from a partnership created by the cable companies.

Sprint, according to the article, runs the risk of being relegated to a regional wireless carrier. It doesn’t have the footprint needed to be a promoter of the cablers’ video programming services, which is why Verizon won out in the spectrum deal.

Personally I believe that Sprint blew its wad trying to fight the AT&T merger. Unfortunately for Sprint, consolidation still rules the air. (I know. Sounds like a cheesy Verizon plug.)

Sprint may get what it feared the most: mediocrity and duopoly compliments of its failure to hold on to its land line business (divestiture showed lack of foresight by them and the FCC) and poor management. Tough …

The editorial board at The New York Times is having issues with a non-issue. A joint venture between Verizon and a number of cable companies, including Comcast and Time Warner, has the national paper of record in a slight tizzy. Less than two weeks after tasting victory from AT&T’s withdrawal of its bid to buy T-Mobile USA, The Times is questioning the impact the Verizon joint venture would have on wireless competition.

Verizon bought some spectrum, the nectar of all that is wireless, from Comcast and Time Warner. Comcast and Time Warner will also offer bundled packages of video and Verizon wireless services and Verizon will offer its subscribers calling packages that include cable service. Not bad if you believe in convergence and bundling.

The New York Times, on the other hand, wants more Federal Communications Commission oversight to ensure wireless competition. The New York Times, as a newspaper is representative of a losing business model, is instructing the wireless market on competition? Wow.

What Verizon and the cable companies have proposed is merely good business. Both represent access channels to consumers. They are already inside the homes of consumers who may need the others services. Why continue building out to homes when your competitor agrees to help sell your prime product over his channel in exchange for you doing the same for him?

Can anyone say that they are ready to see government try to substitute its “business judgment” for that of Verizon’s?

Jamilah King posted an in-depth article addressing how carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have created cyber-ghettos via their wireless service offerings. Unfortunately this admittedly in-depth article is a poorly veiled attempt to argue for net neutrality; a concept that has never considered how best to promote broadband adoption in minority communities much less increase economic activity. Net neutrality will only drive up the cost minorities pay for access to the Internet as higher compliance costs are passed through in the prices for mobile devices and wireless broadband access.

The article started off well, giving an ample description of the downside of access to the Internet via mobile versus fixed
wire connections. I was hoping that the article would focus on how the disproportionate reliance on handheld wireless
devices hinders our ability to produce content and create other ideas that could be sold for income, especially in a challenging economy such as ours. All I got was more whining about AT&T’s alleged bogey-man status.

It raises the question, however. Is the digital divide being compounded by the marketing of wireless devices toward blacks and Latinos thus giving the market the false sense that minorities are only interested in entertainment?

Just when opponents to the AT&T, T-Mobile merger are beginning to get comfortable with their argument that the merger would mean the end of competition, along comes Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner to shake things up a bit.

According to an article in Politic365.com, Verizon is purchasing 122 wireless licenses from Spectrum Co., a partnership that includes Comcast, Time Warner, and Brighthouse Networks.

This partnership definitely offers access to more broadband capacity. The last thing consumers need is dropped calls or interrupted data flow.

It also puts pressure on the FCC to reassess its position that the deal bewteen AT&T and T-Mobile will somehow lessen competition when you have transactions like these that increase capacity, increase the number of potential wireless carriers, and keeps prices in check.