Well, hopefully it doesn't cause reason to block the merger ex post. Disclosure upfront, I'm nothing more than a satisfied T-Mobile customer that switched away a couple of years ago from AT&T. No other interests in this race.
Sprint was a shambling zombie, and any public policy measure that could be undertaken to make Sprint something other than a shambling zombie, and in particular, into a viable competitor would have rewarded Sprint for well, not being competitive.
Out of the four major carriers we used to have, we had 2.5 well capitalized competitors with large customer bases and Sprint, a shambling zombie. T-Mobile put together an offer, tendered it to Sprint, and it was accepted, and out of the many ways that Sprint could have been gobbled up by one of its larger and better competitors, T-Mobile serving as daddy to Sprint's mommy was about the best outcome you could have gotten. This puts their customer base, assuming the Sprint customers stay, at relatively equal footing with Verizon and AT&T, and more customers = increased cash flow, and increased cash flow keeps them operating in the black and hopefully with room to invest.
I don't care if we have three or four or five major wireless carriers right now so long as I can be satisfied with one of them where I live and work. T-Mobile's "Uncarrier"-like lack of billing shenanigans was one of the things that put them over the edge when I decided to bite the bullet and switch carriers. Also, with StarLink and maybe other systems like it possibly coming online and into service in the next couple of years, I'm not at all convinced it's going to matter that we only have three major "cell carriers" going into the next decade. Let T-Mobile keep all its customers, all of the spectrum they acquired. They paid for it, and I expect them to put it to use on behalf of their customers.
Sprint was a shambling zombie, and any public policy measure that could be undertaken to make Sprint something other than a shambling zombie, and in particular, into a viable competitor would have rewarded Sprint for well, not being competitive.
Out of the four major carriers we used to have, we had 2.5 well capitalized competitors with large customer bases and Sprint, a shambling zombie. T-Mobile put together an offer, tendered it to Sprint, and it was accepted, and out of the many ways that Sprint could have been gobbled up by one of its larger and better competitors, T-Mobile serving as daddy to Sprint's mommy was about the best outcome you could have gotten. This puts their customer base, assuming the Sprint customers stay, at relatively equal footing with Verizon and AT&T, and more customers = increased cash flow, and increased cash flow keeps them operating in the black and hopefully with room to invest.
I don't care if we have three or four or five major wireless carriers right now so long as I can be satisfied with one of them where I live and work. T-Mobile's "Uncarrier"-like lack of billing shenanigans was one of the things that put them over the edge when I decided to bite the bullet and switch carriers. Also, with StarLink and maybe other systems like it possibly coming online and into service in the next couple of years, I'm not at all convinced it's going to matter that we only have three major "cell carriers" going into the next decade. Let T-Mobile keep all its customers, all of the spectrum they acquired. They paid for it, and I expect them to put it to use on behalf of their customers.