The No. 4 U.S. carrier said that it is eliminating some jobs and outsourcing others, while also staffing up in some areas, such as business sales.

“T-Mobile previously announced its intent to restructure and optimize operations throughout the company in order to best reposition the company, given today’s demanding and rapidly evolving marketplace,” the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. “This week we are communicating to our employees a series of additional organizational changes to best position T-Mobile to powerfully compete and return to growth.”

Parent company Deutsche Telekom has agreed to pump billions of dollars into the struggling carrier to help modernize its network and launch high-speed LTE service. At the same time, T-Mobile has continued to lose contract customers and has said it needs to better align its cost structure even as it tries to regain lost ground.

As part of last week’s earnings report, the company said it aims to beef up efforts to sell to businesses, among other efforts.

Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced a first wave of cuts that included the closing of several call centers and at the time indicated further restructuring was on the horizon. The company has also said it is exploring whether to sell its cell towers.

According to a memo obtained by the Verge, CEO Philipp Humm says affected workers will be notified this week if their job is among those being cut.

“We have tremendous employees here at T-Mobile and we truly wish we could retain all our talent, but our business realities require hard choices,” Humm said in the memo. T-Mobile said most workers will learn their fate today or tomorrow.

While the rumored marriage of the two carriers would certainly result in a larger subscriber base, a more robust infrastructure and a nice combined swath of spectrum, there are other considerations that make the combination a bit dubious. And though chatter about a potential deal may have cheered some investors, it’s turning the stomachs of others.

To wit, Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett’s take on a T-Mobile/Metro PCS merger, which begins with an exclamation that pretty much says it all:

“Oh my, what an ugly baby.”

Moffet’s opinion is that combining two wireless weaklings just leaves you with a bigger weakling, particularly if they rely on different network technologies, as T-Mobile and MetroPCS do. T-Mobile’s network is GSM. MetroPCS’s is CDMA. In other words, a combination of the two is not a solution to either company’s problems, at least until they meet on LTE.

“Both [companies] are spectrum constrained — this wouldn’t change that — and they rely on fundamentally different technology platforms, making a combination a logistical nightmare,” Moffet says. “It will be years before either is sufficiently transitioned to LTE to make a combination truly sensible. To be sure, there would potentially be some overlapping retail stores in MetroPCS market, there would naturally be some selling, general and administrative expenses savings, and there are perhaps some savings in LTE network deployment in MetroPCS markets. But none of these benefits would provide truly compelling justification.”

And that really does seem to be the case. Though, to be fair, the combination would give T-Mobile more customers, which it could really use, after having lost more than a half-million contract customers in the first quarter.

Still, it’s far from an ideal tie-up. Said R.W. Baird’s William Power, in a note that echoes Moffet’s: “A T-Mobile/PCS merger smells like a mess to us, and seems to speak to the challenges facing the industry, exacerbated by the government rejection of the T/T-Mobile deal, which might have created spectrum opportunities for the other operators.”

The former German state telecommunications monopoly said revenue in the three months ended March 31 slipped 1.1 percent on the year to €14.43 billion as it continues to struggle with the economic headwinds in many parts of Europe. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and one-time items, a number that tracks operational performance, remained unchanged at €4.48 billion, slightly ahead of analysts’ predictions.

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The German telecommunications firm is working with the security start-up to protect its large base of European Android users.

“We see a growing challenge to how we can secure our smartphones,” Deutsche Telekom Senior VP Heikki Makijarvi said in a telephone interview. Makijarvi said that his company can do a lot to secure its network, but that only goes so far when users are downloading any number of third-party applications.

Lookout’s global reach helps since new threats can crop up anywhere in the world.

“They detect it wherever it happens,” he said, even in “China or Asia where we do not have operations.”

As part of the deal, Lookout will also get some space at a Berlin office and work with Deutsche Telekom to develop new services over the next six to nine months. Lookout CEO John Hering said both Europe generally and Germany specifically are key markets when it comes to awareness about security and privacy. That makes Germany a particularly good place to try out new services.

“For us this is more than just a distribution relationship,” Hering said.

(Image via Vladru |Shutterstock)

T-Mobile and HTC did their best to do just that on Wednesday night, hiring hip band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and throwing a party at a hip New York City club.

They combined to fete the HTC One S — a new high-end Android phone that goes on sale April 25 for $199. The slim device is part of the One family that HTC is counting on to help it regain lost ground in the smartphone business.

It remains to be seen how far the event and resultant buzz will go toward helping T-Mobile and HTC in their bid to boost their respective images.

HTC, after seeing sales doubling year-ago levels for the first several months of last year, hit a wall and is now seeing significant year-over-year drops.

A study of mobile Web surfing shows just how far mighty HTC has fallen. According to Chitika, the share of mobile Web pages being requested from HTC devices is down 60 percent from half a year ago, though that number also reflects the rise of the iPad. Still, Samsung has gained over that period and LG has roughly held its own.

T-Mobile, meanwhile, is aiming to come up with a new strategy after last year’s failed effort to sell itself to AT&T. Parent Deutsche Telekom has promised to reinvest in the U.S. arm, agreeing to pump $4 billion into the network over the next few years in order to launch LTE service.

On the marketing side, T-Mobile plans a broader relaunch in the second half of this year. However, deciding it couldn’t wait that long, the carrier kicked off a new ad campaign this week that featured its spokeswoman, Carly, trading in her pink dresses for leather and a Ducati.

The HTC One S that was shown off on Wednesday will become a featured part of the ad campaign, starting early next month.

About 3,300 people work at the call centers being closed, but T-Mobile said it plans to hire up to 1,400 people at the remaining facilities, resulting in 1,900 net job cuts. The facilities set to close by the end of June are: Allentown, Pennsylvania; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kansas; Thornton, Colorado; and Redmond, Oregon.

“Concentrating call centers is an important step to achieve competitive cost structures to successfully compete as [a] challenger and value player in the wireless market,” said Philipp Humm, CEO and President of T-Mobile. “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.”

T-Mobile has been losing customers in recent months, resulting in a decreased need for call center staffers.

The move comes in the wake of T-Mobile’s failed bid to sell itself to AT&T, a deal scuttled by objections from regulators. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom said earlier this year that it will invest further in the No. 4 U.S. carrier, including a $4 billion effort to build a next-generation LTE network using a combination of existing spectrum and that acquired from AT&T as part of the failed deal.

Humm said earlier this year that T-Mobile would look to resume the “challenger” brand image it had crafted before its AT&T merger plans, noting that there isn’t another AT&T-like deal to be had.

As for the job cuts, T-Mobile is not stopping with the call centers.

“T-Mobile will restructure and optimize operations in other parts of the business, which will take place by the end of second quarter of 2012,” the company said in a statement.

The bulk of those cuts will take place by the end of May and will be in areas other than the call centers. They also won’t take place among front-line workers at the company’s retail stores or its network technicians, T-Mobile said.

The call center cuts were reported earlier on Thursday by The Verge, a technology news site.

Targeted in the query are the so-called E5 — Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, and Vodafone — whose CEOs met occasionally, beginning in 2010, ostensibly to discuss major industry issues.

Topics of discussion reportedly ran the gamut of innocent topics — from mobile payment platforms to the creation of a common app platform. But evidently the EC is concerned that more nefarious things may have been discussed, and if that was the case, whether the meetings constituted collusion.

The European Commission confirmed the inquiry, but stressed that at this stage no formal investigation has been launched.

“The requests for information relate to the manner in which standardization for future services in the mobile-communications area is taking place,” a spokesman for EC Competition Chief Joaquin Almunia explained. “These fact-finding steps do not mean that we have competition concerns at this stage, nor do they prejudge the follow-up.”

So this may not necessarily lead to an official investigation. That said, such requests do often signal that a more detailed probe is in the offing.

T-Mobile — which just months ago was pushing antitrust authorities to approve its failed deal to sell itself to AT&T Inc. — argued in an FCC filing that Verizon Wireless’s deal poses “a clear threat to competition” and would allow the nation’s largest cellphone carrier “to accumulate even more spectrum on top of an already dominant position, while checkmating crucial avenues for growth of its smaller competitors.”

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AT&T said it would turn over the airwaves, or spectrum, along with $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG after pulling out of the deal as opposition mounted from the FCC, Justice Department, state attorneys general and rival carriers.

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So just what is he going to do?

Well, some of the details are still being worked out. But Humm said a big part will be continuing with the “value plans” that the company introduced last year. Those plans, which offer lower monthly rates to those who forego a device subsidy, can indeed save many customers money, but they are also complicated to make sense of.

“I think it’s more complicated because it means you separate out the handset from the rate plan,” Humm said. “On the other hand, it is more honest. It is a way for customers to optimize based on what they need.”

Humm notes that some customers want a big data plan but don’t need the latest smartphone, while others want the latest phone but not a lot of data. T-Mobile’s value plans ensure neither will overpay.

T-Mobile also intends to stick with plans that slow users down after they hit the amount of data they have paid for, rather than implementing an overage charge.

“What customers hate is when they are using data and suddenly they are being cut off or they have to pay gigantic overages,” Humm said. “Our model doesn’t do that. You stay connected and you don’t have to pay more.”

And while other carriers struggle to figure out a way to allow customers to share gigabytes across multiple devices, Humm said T-Mobile is sticking with an approach that allows customers to add a discounted second rate plan.

When it comes to getting the latest devices, Humm insists that isn’t a problem despite his No. 4 market position and the fact that the company uses a rather unique wireless band.

Of course, there is one big exception: The iPhone.

All of the other major U.S. carriers — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint — now carry the Apple device, leaving Humm odd man out.

He isn’t giving up hope, though.

“The key reason we didn’t have the iPhone in the past is we are on different band than globally the market was,” Humm said. “That is something which will change over time. Chipsets are also evolving to be able to allow for more bands.”

As always, though, the decision is up to Apple, Humm acknowledges.

On the marketing front, Humm said that T-Mobile will probably resume the approach it had been taking prior to the AT&T deal, in which it sharply attacked its rivals and pitched itself as a more consumer-friendly alternative.

“We will pick up our challenger strategy the way we had presented it last year and sharpen it further,” he said.

Long-term, the company still has to figure out what it is going to do about a next-generation network. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have all either launched an LTE network or plan to do so this year.

Because of spectrum limitations, T-Mobile has focused instead on speeding up its existing HSPA+ network, which it also bills as “4G.” For now, Humm insists that is good enough, saying customers care more about reliability and speed than they do network technology.

The real benefit of LTE, Humm said, is on easing network congestion, and he notes that isn’t a problem T-Mobile currently is struggling with.

“LTE has the advantage on the long haul; it is more effective spectrum ultilization,” Humm said. “That’s only something which will help (over) the long haul. You are talking about maybe in three, four, five years.”

LTE is still the long-term plan, Humm said, adding that he thinks the company will find a way to get the spectrum it needs.

“We’re not against LTE,” Humm said. “We will over time evolve to LTE. We just don’t see a need to move there very fast.”

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While the carrier gets valuable spectrum, a roaming agreement and $3 billion in cash, the future of the No. 4 U.S. carrier is cloudier than ever, now that AT&T has called off its planned purchase.

T-Mobile has been operating as something of a lame duck since AT&T first proposed its $39 billion acquisition in March. Consumers, employees and potential partners have all been writing the carrier off, assuming that it would soon be swallowed up by its far-larger rival.

The abrupt turn of events will send T-Mobile and its parent company back to the drawing board, which will include soliciting new buyers, figuring out a strategy for its next-generation network and coming up with some inducements to avoid losing even more customers.

The blow of the breakup is only softened by the fact that the Bellevue, Wash.-based carrier will be handed a huge chunk of spending money to ride out the near-term bumps.

As T-Mobile looks to come up with Plan B, here are some potential options:

Spectrum sharing: As part of the breakup, AT&T has entered a mutually beneficial roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom. Terms of the agreement have not yet been shared, but there could be some pretty compelling outcomes.

In Europe, it is common for carriers to share spectrum and even the cost of maintaining the network and towers. From the consumer’s perspective, it’s two different networks and two different brands. The carriers only end up competing on handset offerings, price and features — not coverage.

Another merger: T-Mobile will entertain any and all offers. Most recently, Dish said it was interested in partnering with T-Mobile if its merger with AT&T fell apart. Other candidates could include Sprint, or other companies from the media industry that are always sniffing around wireless, such as cable operators.

A bid from a company like Google or Microsoft would definitely make things interesting. While both are less likely candidates, they could use the network to push their agenda, including handsets and applications.

A total overhaul: The $4 billion breakup fee could give Deutsche Telekom the confidence to take another shot at the U.S. market. Probably not, but there’s always a chance. The company’s roots have been entrepreneurial and scrappy, but it’s been awhile since it has been able to make an impact on the market.

Worst-case scenario: Deutsche Telekom passes out the cash as a dividend to stockholders. It has always leaned on the U.S. as a moneymaker, and this could be no exception.

The 4G conundrum: Regardless, T-Mobile still does not have enough spectrum to update its network to the next generation. It may gain access to AT&T’s 4G network as part of the roaming agreement with AT&T, but both companies will arguably need more spectrum to keep up with demand.

The only two options will be to partner with Clearwire or LightSquared, or to wait until the next government auction. Both Clearwire and LightSquared are always in need of more cash, and have their difficulties. A deal with Clearwire would be additionally complicated by the fact that Sprint owns nearly half of the company.

AllThingsD’s Ina Fried contributed to this report.

In a statement, AT&T said it had made the move after consulting with T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, and criticized the actions that forced it to abandon the deal.

“The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage,” AT&T said. “In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.”

In addition to federal regulators, Sprint had vehemently opposed the deal, as had other smaller competitors and public interest groups, arguing it would hurt competition.

AT&T will have to pay a giant breakup fee to Deutsche Telekom, as well as enter into an expanded roaming agreement. AT&T said it would take a $4 billion charge in the fourth quarter to account for the cash and spectrum owed to the German telecommunications firm. The charge reflects $3 billion in cash and the $1 billion book value of spectrum owed, though many have placed the value of the spectrum at far more than its book value.

Despite the windfall, the move still leaves Deutsche Telekom without an exit plan for its U.S. holdings, and leaves T-Mobile without a clear path to offer higher-speed LTE service.

AT&T announced its plans to acquire T-Mobile back in March, on the eve of the CTIA trade show in Orlando. It drew almost immediate opposition from Sprint. The headwinds grew stronger as regulators began considering the deal and its potential impact on competition.

The companies had sought to see if there might be a way to offer concessions, but opponents seemed against any combination of the two, dimming the prospects for satisfactory concessions.

AT&T also failed on the political side, in addition to its regulatory chess moves. The company sought to withdraw its FCC application in hope of waiting for a court to rule on the Justice Department’s move to block the deal. However, the court in that case decided that with no FCC application pending it had no need to move quickly.

These discussions are not advanced and were described by the people more as a plan the two companies have on the backburner. Still, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are likely to take a closer look at a joint venture as AT&T’s planned $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA faces mounting opposition, they added.

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A Deutsche Telekom spokesman said that AT&T could pull out of the deal if the concessions needed to get approval were above $7.8 billion, but said the German company would still be entitled to the break-up fee package.

Reuters, citing an unidentified insider, reported Monday that AT&T may get around that agreement if certain conditions are met.

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In a surprisingly early and decisive move, the Department of Justice on Wednesday filed suit to block AT&T’s planned $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA. Justice Department attorneys said that they are concerned the deal will lessen competition, ultimately leading to higher prices for consumers.

Experts say the broad worry about the reduction in competition makes it tough to imagine what sort of sweeteners the companies could create to make the deal easier to swallow.

“Given the nature of the specific concerns articulated by the DOJ, those types of concerns are hard to address through concessions,” said Maury Mechanick, a telecommunications attorney with White & Case.

As a result, it would appear that AT&T and T-Mobile will have to weigh whether they are willing endure an all-out court fight to try to preserve the deal.

And oh, what a fight it would be. In order for the deal to go forward, AT&T would have to convince a federal court to see things its way as well as prevail on any appeals, a process that is uncertain, not to mention costly and time-consuming. Even if they ultimately prevail in court, the companies still need the approval of the Federal Communications Commission.

Both FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Michael Copps issued statements on Wednesday saying that they, too, have concerns about the deal. While the FCC review is separate from the one being done by the Justice Department, the statements indicate the two agencies seem to be on the same page when it comes to the deal.

One FCC insider noted that the agency has never approved a deal that the Justice Department sued to block.

For now, both AT&T and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom say they are willing to fight for the deal. AT&T has asked for an expedited hearing on the matter.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed suit seeking to block the deal on the grounds it would harm competition. AT&T said it was surprised by the government’s move and vowed to fight in court.

In a statement to AllThingsD, the German telephone giant said the U.S. government is wrong to block the proposed $39 billion deal.

“Deutsche Telekom is very disappointed by the DOJ’s action, and will join AT&T in defending the contemplated merger against the complaint in court,” DT Executive Vice President Philipp Schindera said. “(The) DOJ failed to acknowledge the robust competition in the U.S. wireless telecommunications industry and the tremendous efficiencies associated with the proposed transaction, which would lead to significant customer, shareholder, and public benefits.”

Schindera did say he appreciated the apparent willingness of regulators to discuss possible remedies.

The U.S. wireless arm of Deutsche Telekom said its revenue for the June quarter was $5.05 billion, down from $5.16 billion in the prior quarter and $5.36 billion in the second quarter of 2010. Net income in the second quarter of 2011 was $212 million, up 57 percent sequentially, but down 48 percent from last year’s second quarter.

On the subscriber front, T-Mobile said it lost 50,000 overall customers, as a drop of 281,000 contract customers was partially offset by gains in the prepaid segment. The average monthly revenue per customer was $46, about where it has been the last few quarters, but down $1 per month from the second quarter of last year, as prepaid customers make up an increasing percentage of the comapny’s business.

“The United States remains a difficult market for Deutsche Telekom, but we see improvements compared to the first quarter of 2011,” Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann said in a statement, adding that the company plans to stick with its current strategy.

The company also noted $13 million in expenses related to the pending AT&T deal, which it hopes will close early next year, despite opposition from Sprint and others.

For the quarter, T-Mobile said its service revenue was $4.63 billion, about the same as a year earlier, though operating income before depreciation and amortization fell $200 million. In particular, the company struggled to sign new contract customers as its mix continued to shift to prepaid customers.

“The first quarter shows a mixed picture,” Rene Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom, said in a statement.

Of course, most eyes these days are on T-Mobile USA’s planned sale to AT&T for $39 billion–a deal that still requires regulatory approval from both the Federal Communications Comission and the Department of Justice. A Senate subcommittee is scheduled to hold hearings of its own next week.

“Our deal with AT&T announced a few weeks ago will not change the focus of our US business. Until the closing of the deal, T-Mobile will continue to challenge its competitors and compete aggressively in the US market.”

T-Mobile, which had been attacking AT&T, in particular, in its ads, now focuses its TV campaign generically on its rivals as seeking to hit customers with all sorts of overage and other charges. The company ended the first quarter with 33.6 million customers, down from 33.7 million in both the December quarter and a year ago. However, it lost 471,000 contract customers sequentially, offset some by the fact it gained 372,000 prepaid customers.

The carrier says it activated 3.6 million iPhones in Q1. That’s down from 4.1 million in Q4 2010, but up from the same quarter a year ago, when it turned on 2.7 million Apple handsets.

AT&T says 23 percent of its iPhone activations were new subscribers. [An earlier version of this post reach a premature conclusion about the percentage of AT&T users that migrated to Verizon.]

The carrier’s earnings release said almost nothing about its planned acquisition of T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion, but we’ll expect to hear more about that during the conference call later this morning.

“We anticipate there will be some markets we will have to divest,” Mr. Stephenson said in an interview.

AT&T’s proposed plan to buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom AG for $39 billion is expected to face heavy scrutiny from regulators and opposition from consumer-advocacy groups and competitors. Rivals Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. have already been vocal about the harmful impact from the deal.

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Combined, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA spent roughly $11 billion in 2010 on wireless capital expenditures–that is, the plumbing that keeps their networks flowing freely. If the merger is approved, big changes may be made to how those billions are spent, creating winners and losers among infrastructure suppliers.

In the early going, AT&T expects to boost its own capex by $2 billion in order to integrate T-Mobile’s network. One winner could be tiny Tekelec, said analyst George Notter of Jefferies. AT&T accounts for a fifth of its revenue and might use more of the company’s technology to unclog its network by shifting traffic to T-Mobile’s.

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Or, perhaps $600 million. Depends on which estimate you want to use for T-Mobile’s annual marketing outlay.

The first, which doesn’t include Internet advertising, comes from Nielsen. The second, which presumably does, comes from WPP’s Kantar Media.

In any case, T-Mobile and parent Deutsche Telekom spend a lot on advertising each year, but not nearly as much as their peers. Nielsen pegs AT&T’s annual spend–just for wireless ads–at $896 milllion; Sprint at $616 million and Verizon at $979 million.

It’s important to note that AT&T will end up replacing some of T-Mobile’s ad spend, but not all of it. As Shira Ovide notes, cutting down on duplicative advertising is part of the rationale for the deal.

Nielsen provided me with a detailed estimate which breaks down how much of each of the carriers spend per year, on every category but Web spending and “spot” TV buying (ads bought ad hoc instead of in advance).

You can see the whole thing at the bottom of this post but if you’re impatient: Not surprisingly, the carriers spend the most, by far, on broadcast TV, followed by cable TV, Spanish-language TV, and then local newspapers.

As far as Web ad spend goes: The carriers spend a lot online, too. But tracking for that stuff is much more hit and miss. Nielsen used to provide a guesstimate for display ads, but doesn’t right now. When they did, though, AT&T and Verizon were frequently in their top 10 lists.

One other note: Lots of people are passionate about Carly Foulkes, the T-Mobile spokesmodel who wore a pink and white dress in all those ads. But I’m the kind of guy who was always more interested in the “AT&T”/John Hodgman guy. Go figure.

It turns out the actor’s name is Dan Bakkedahl, and he used to be on the “The Daily Show”, and I was wondering what he thought about this. Alas, “T-Mobile would like Dan to wait to do any interviews,” his manager informs me via e-mail.

OK. But as soon as he’s ready, he’s got an open forum here…

Wireless Carrier Ad Spend July09-June10

Here’s the memo to staff from T-Mobile CEO Phillip Humm (which we should note was posted earlier on Sunday by newly formed Seattle-area tech site GeekWire). And for more, check out Mobilized’s just-published interview with AT&T executive Ralph De La Vega offering his take on the deal.

Dear colleagues,

I write to you over the weekend with important news. Today we announced the beginning of a new journey for T-Mobile USA. AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have reached an agreement for AT&T to acquire T-Mobile USA, positioning the combined company to create a world-class platform for mobile broadband innovation and growth. Deutsche Telekom will become the largest shareholder of AT&T.

The sale of T-Mobile USA to AT&T is the best possible solution for our business and for our customers. The merger will ensure the deployment of a robust 4G network to 95% of the U.S. population, something neither company could achieve on its own. Also, because of our compatible networks and spectrum, the customers of T-Mobile USA and AT&T will experience improved voice and data service almost immediately after the networks are integrated.

Additional details about this transaction are included in a press release attached to this e-mail.

I know this news is unexpected and may be somewhat unsettling, but I am confident that our strong culture and T-Mobile USA Values will help guide us through this process.

Bringing together these two world-class businesses will create significant benefits for our customers. T-Mobile is a wonderful business, with great employees who have always demonstrated a willingness to do what it takes to be successful. Frankly, that is exactly why AT&T expressed an interest in combining our organization with theirs.

AT&T has a proven track record of growing through successful integrations. Their leaders recognize that making this combination a success will require the talent and commitment of T-Mobile USA employees. I believe you will see that reflected in their statements and their actions. In fact, AT&T’s leadership has said keeping our talented people through this transition is one of their top priorities.

It is important to keep in mind that this transaction requires regulatory approval from government agencies; until that time we remain T-Mobile USA and must continue to operate independently. It is expected that this deal will close within 12 months. With that in mind, I ask that each of you remain focused on the outstanding work you do every day to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations.

I ask you to join me in embracing this new opportunity to build America’s premier mobile broadband company. In the meantime, continue to execute our Challenger strategy – there‘s a lot of work to do in the year ahead.

I promise to make more information available to you in the coming days and weeks on OneVoice and through your leaders.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment and support.

With sincere appreciation,

Philipp Humm
CEO & President
T-Mobile USA

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• Sprint: AT&T’s T-Mobile Buy Would “Dramatically Alter” Market
• First Casualty of AT&T Deal: T-Mobile Drops From CTIA Panel
• What AT&T Owes T-Mobile if Deal Doesn’t Go Through
• T-Mobile USA: No, We’re Not Getting the iPhone Yet
• T-Mobile’s Memo to Staff on the AT&T Deal
• AT&T’s President on Why T-Mobile Deal Should Pass Muster and Won’t be a Customer Nightmare
• T-Mobile: We Were Totally Kidding About AT&T’s Crappy Network!
• AT&T Agrees to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion

True, part of the rationale for the $39 billion deal is that combining the two networks will improve AT&T’s quality. But that’s a nuance that may be lost on TV (and Web video) viewers who have been watching T-Mobile explain, over and over and over, why AT&T is a terrible choice.

MORE COVERAGE

• AT&T Agrees to Acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 Billion
• AT&T’s President on Why T-Mobile Deal Should Pass Muster and Won’t be a Customer Nightmare
• T-Mobile’s Memo to Staff on the AT&T Deal
• T-Mobile USA: No, We’re Not Getting the iPhone Yet