[Alex3917]

> "we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains."

It makes perfect sense. T-Mobile basically bought up all the spectrum in the last round of bidding because they got a $4B breakup fee from AT&T as part of AT&T's failed acquisition. That has put all the other U.S. carriers on the defensive, because if they can't win a significant percentage of the 5G spectrum then they're going to be out of business.

[dd36]

Wait, Verizon doesn't have access to $4B? Verizon surely has significantly more net income than Tmobile. And therefore also has access to more leverage. $4B would not make that big of a difference.

[bduerst]

Verizon makes about $4 B in quarterly net income, but they only have about $2 B cash on hand and have investors who expect a $2.4 B dividend each quarter.

So yeah, this is a hard purchase for them, especially since they also have $209 B in liabilities already.

[dd36]

No way. You don't miss out on 5G because you couldn't come up with $4B and your smaller competitor could. If it were $40B, sure.

[adventured]

That's definitely correct, $4 billion is meaningless. If it were $40b to corner 5G, Verizon and AT&T could come up with it and T-Mobile couldn't.

For significant business purposes, both Verizon and AT&T could borrow $40b easily. Whether for an acquisition or critical spectrum buy. They both have plenty of borrowing capacity despite being highly leveraged (it'll very likely end badly one day in the future).

[axaxs]

As I understand it(as of last year)...T-Mobile's "5G" is radically different than ATT/Verizons. The former using low band for coverage and penetration, and the latter using high band cell sites. So one has greater reach at the risk of congestion, and the other will have much less congestion but little reach. Which is better is to be seen...