14 DAY TRIAL // T-Mobile USA, the United States subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, is reportedly in talks with Clearwire for the possible creation of a joint venture that will enable it to improve its wireless spectrum opportunities. According to a recent article on Reuters, T-Mobile USA's CEO Robert Dotson confirmed talks with cable companies and network providers for the enhancement of its spectrum capacity.
“We continue to look at JV opportunities for additional spectrum... there are a number of different options we look at, (we) have been talking with cable companies, with Clearwire,” Robert Dotson stated during an investor presentation in Germany on Thursday. At the same time, he also notes that the mobile phone carrier does not plan on waiting for additional spectrum to become available courtesy of the national broadband plan the Federal Communications Commission is working on at the moment.
According to FCC, its National Broadband Plan is expected to make 500MHz of spectrum available for broadband within 10 years, while 300MHz of that spectrum should be made available within the following five years. However, it seems that T-Mobile, which is currently the fourth largest carrier in the country, is too far behind other wireless services providers in the country (Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel Corp) to wait for the spectrum to become available.
When asked about a possible joint venture with Sprint, Dotson stated the following: “What you never want to do is take one company that is going through challenges and take another company going through challenges.” At the same time, he also said that the wireless carrier was “not looking at how you change the configuration of the U.S. market.”
T-Mobile USA has been loosing a lot of customers lately, and a series of speculations on its purchase by another company already emerged into the wild. Moreover, some even suggested that it would plan a partnering with some of the country's carriers, including Sprint, Leap Wireless International Inc or MetroPCS Communications Inc, as well as with Clearwire Corp.