Everything T-Mobile, Sprint Merger Critics Predicted Has Come True

Last week T-Mobile annoyed customers everywhere by not only informing them they'd soon be facing a steep price hike, but by pretending it wasn't actually a price hike. The company announced it would be moving customers to a more expensive plan unless they opted out (hoping that users wouldn't notice the change). Leaked support docs show reps were told to lie to customers:

The leaked documents show what customer service reps are being trained to tell users. Instead of saying the price is going up, reps will say, We are not raising the price of any of our plans; we are moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost." That's the talking point customer service reps are supposed to use if a customer mentions that they saw commercials about how T-Mobile won't raise the price of my plan."

But users say the new benefits" suck and aren't worth the headache. They also said the head fake violates the company's previous pledges not to raise rates, which was used for years to pull customers to T-Mobile from AT&T and Verizon in the first place.

This is par for the course for the new" T-Mobile in the wake of the 2020 Sprint merger. Gone are the interesting new promotions. Gone is the amusing ridicule of wireless giants like Verizon and AT&T. Gone is the pseudo-hip trash talking CEO in his magenta sneakers. In its place is a wireless provider that looks more and more like the companies T-Mobile used to ridicule.

Of course, this was all predicted by myself and a long line of deal critics. Not because we're ornery bastards, but because this is what always happens in the wake of this kind of mindless consolidation. Claiming that this wasn't going to happen (and there were a lot of industry-funded bullshitters dedicated to pretending this wouldn't happen) was akin to fighting the laws of physics.

When T-Mobile and Sprint proposed merging back in 2020, historians, economists, and consumer groups weren't gentle with their criticism. They noted that historically around the world, a reduction in overall wireless competitors from four to three almost always resulted in a bunch of layoffs, less competition, higher prices, and a lower quality product overall.

T-Mobile and former CEO John Legere's response to those critics? To claim they were lying, and to insist the deal would be endlessly beneficial and job positive from day one and every day after."

But it didn't take long before T-Mobile had not only laid off nearly 10,000 employees (and tried to lie about it), but had begun socking users with the exact kind of dodgy fees and price hikes T-Mobile had previously made fun of. Gone is the disruptive, creative, edgy brand consumers found refreshing, and in its place is more of the broken old status quo.

Trump-era regulators played a key part of the con. They approved the deal without even reading the details about the deal's impact. They then concocted an elaborate but clearly doomed fix" involving Dish Network designed to provide flimsy policy cover in the press.

You'd like to think the U.S. would learn from this experience and perhaps start doing some more diligent reviews of mergers and consolidation. But nobody will learn anything from this experience because reputational or financial penalties simply aren't built into the mathematics.

The Trump era revolving door regulators who approved the deal have failed upward to new positions in industry. John Legere is off napping on a giant pile of money. The companies got massive tax breaks. And consumers and employees were once again left holding the bag after promises of amazing consolidation synergies" are once again shown to be hollow, performative bullshit. You'd think we'd eventually learn.