More on the merger: Nilay Patel
dunks on the judge's decision:
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And… it turns out that Judge Marrero thinks CEO John Legere and the rest of T-Mobile’s executives are extremely cool and smart and that Dish Network is definitely trustworthy and that everything is going to work out great.
Also, the judge thinks that Sprint sucks. Really, if there’s one major takeaway here, it’s that Victor Marrero, a federal judge selected by Bill Clinton for a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary, thinks that Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies. This is the law now.
The post is pretty funny with the judge credulously accepting hype of various kinds from Legere and from Charlie Ergen of Dish.
And on to how Dish will implement the new competitor:
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This is a complicated plan, and one of the arguments in the case was that Dish wouldn’t actually go through with it. It’s a lot cheaper to just hoard the spectrum and sell it at a premium to one of the bigger players later. But Judge Marrero looked into Dish chairman Charlie Ergen’s ~vibes~ and decided to roll the dice on the ol’ maverick.
But what if Dish doesn’t keep its promises or T-Mobile does some shady tricks to limit access to its network? Don’t worry, says Judge Marrero. A DOJ-appointed monitor will keep everyone in line!
It’s honestly a little cute and heartwarming that Judge Marrero thinks a government lawyer will be able to police how well T-Mobile treats Dish Network as an MVNO customer.
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Judge Marrero also seemed wowed by Dish Network’s 5G buildout plan, which he thinks does not require “large amounts of hardware” because, um, Amazon will be involved. It is true that Dish has grand plans for a software-defined network, which has been a holy grail for a long time. But it is also true that there are literally no vendors for such a network right now, and the strategy is so unproven that experts in wireless industry trade pubs are saying Dish’s plan might actually cost more money to build because so many new and disparate pieces will have to be integrated. And Dish chairman Charlie Ergen has flatly admitted that this approach might entirely fail because it’s so new. It’s mystifying why the court decided to just accept the hype as reality here, except that Judge Marrero was taken by Ergen’s confidence on the stand.
And finally, the
piece de resistance is that the judge does not think Legere will raise prices because he is too good:
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This is truly remarkable. The judge has decided that T-Mobile is going to stay aggressive and keep prices low to take market share, even though its own executives have discussed the merger in terms of raising prices. And this is all because the judge watched Legere and the other T-Mobile execs and decided he loved them. Seriously!
You just can't make this stuff up.
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