Edit: So, I checked where that 51 billion is coming from. The German T-Mobile International article quotes 39.4 billion Euro and references the 2001 annual report, page 131. Here it is (2.4MB PDF monstrosity and German): http://www.download-telekom.de/dt/StaticPage/47/29/gb_d_komp...
The relevant passage (German): „Am 31. Mai 2001 erwarb die Deutsche Telekom je 100 % an der VoiceStream Wireless Corporation, Bellevue, und der Powertel Inc., Bellevue, zu einem Gesamtkaufpreis von 39,4 Mrd. € inklusive einer Cash-Komponente von 4,9 Mrd. € und einer von der Deutschen Telekom bereits im September 2000 getätigten Investition in Vorzugsaktien von VoiceStream in Höhe von 5,6 Mrd. €.“
That passage basically says that they bought 100 percent of VoiceStream and Powertel for together 39.4 billion Euro.
Well, we are still no closer to finding out what caused the discrepancy — maybe the Wikipedia article is simply wrong?
This is a massive discrepancy - wonder where it's coming from...
edit: the $24B figure was introduced into Wikipedia in July 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T-Mobile_USA&d... and not challenged since. On the other hand the main T-Mobile article gives a $50.7B figure with a citation. I [citation needed]-ed the $24B claim, let's see where it goes.
Edit: So, I checked where that 51 billion is coming from. The German T-Mobile International article quotes 39.4 billion Euro and references the 2001 annual report, page 131. Here it is (2.4MB PDF monstrosity and German): http://www.download-telekom.de/dt/StaticPage/47/29/gb_d_komp...
The relevant passage (German): „Am 31. Mai 2001 erwarb die Deutsche Telekom je 100 % an der VoiceStream Wireless Corporation, Bellevue, und der Powertel Inc., Bellevue, zu einem Gesamtkaufpreis von 39,4 Mrd. € inklusive einer Cash-Komponente von 4,9 Mrd. € und einer von der Deutschen Telekom bereits im September 2000 getätigten Investition in Vorzugsaktien von VoiceStream in Höhe von 5,6 Mrd. €.“
That passage basically says that they bought 100 percent of VoiceStream and Powertel for together 39.4 billion Euro.
Well, we are still no closer to finding out what caused the discrepancy — maybe the Wikipedia article is simply wrong?