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AT&T has pulled out of its T-Mobile Deal.  This is good for consumers but it is also an opportunity for other carriers.

My suggestion to Deutsche Telekom is: Finder another buyer(s).  T-Mobile assets may need to be sold off to enable a carrier like Sprint to acquire parts of T-Mobile’s business.

All joking aside this is a major defeat and setback for AT&T.  The reality is that AT&T needed T-Mobile’s spectrum to deal with growth and congestion issues.  As media demands and bandwidth requirements grow so will the carrier’s RF problems.

What will AT&T do now?  This could be an opportunity for carriers like Verizon and Sprint.  This should also serve as a lesson to AT&T in the future:  you cannot get greedy.  AT&T will now need to rapidly deal with growth issues.

Could T-Mobile end up with Leap as its acquirer?  Now that is a possibility but frankly I think that is wishful thinking for now.  I am not even sure if Leap has the cash and DT will want this to be a cash deal.  I still think a Sprint/T-Mobile deal would look nice.

As for Deutsche Telekom, well the carrier wants out of the USA.  DT needs to find a buyer.  One thought I have is that DT ought to consider selling off T-Mobile USA in parts via spectrum sales.  It will be easier for the FCC and DoJ to digest (I hope) and it will probably result in more money.  Often times, selling off a company in parts results in greater profits for the seller.

Getting back to AT&T.  I am not sure if AT&T has the cash now to purchase spectrum from any cable companies.  There still might be some spectrum left after Verizon's recent spectrum buying spree.  I think AT&T's biggest problem is explaining to shareholders it will have to give DT a $3B gift of cash - network expansion is the least of their problems in the next 30 days.