Deutsche Telekom’s CFO has said there is “no need” for it to enter into any sort of deal regarding T-Mobile USA and outlined how the US carrier will progress independent of its parent. Speaking at a TMT conference in Boston, DT’s Timotheus …
Deutsche Telekom’s CFO has said there is “no need” for it to enter into any sort of deal regarding T-Mobile USA and outlined how the US carrier will progress independent of its parent.
Speaking at a TMT conference in Boston, DT’s Timotheus Hottges said: “There is no need for us to enter into any form of deal at this point in time. We have a cashflow that we generate, we are investing $4bn on top of the $2.5bn we normally have in the US business into the US, and with this we have a clear path to LTE.”
Following the collapse of AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile USA late last year there has been speculation regarding the future of DT’s US operator. Last week reports suggested that T-Mobile USA was discussing a merger with US operator MetroPCS.
The company is also in the process of selling towers owned by T-Mobile USA.
Hottges rejected any notion that T-Mobile USA was a problem and explained that the US$6bn break-up fee from the AT&T collapse presented the operator with a forward path.
“After looking at the break-up fee – the cash and the spectrum – we have a very clear way of going forward. It is not a problem child for us, and that is because we have a clear path to LTE,” he said.
The CFO explained that T-Mobile USA was now refarming all the spectrum it had into the standard common LTE band and that it would have 2x 10MHz of LTE in almost every market they operate in.
Hottges was keen to emphasise that everything would be self-funded by T-Mobile USA up until 2017/18, and that the company had no worries about its ability to handle the data needs of its customers.
