Ma Bell is the beast which can not be killed. Even though it was sliced apart years ago it is slowly recombining to recreate a telecommunications monopoly. The latest step in Ma Bell’s reintegration is AT&T making a deal to purchase T-Mobile for $39 million of fiat currency. With this purchase there will be a practical monopoly in the United States for the GSM protocol.
The merger is expected to take one year and until then it sounds like T-Mobile customers will be left alone.
Since Verizon is going LTE, and LTE is the route for GSM within the next 5 years there will be 2 choices again (once LTE is out there in force). I can see how it will help each individual company (AT&T is ahead of T-Mobile on LTE (but behind VZ)), and T-Mobile is ahead of AT&T on HSPSA+. Apparently T-Mobile also lacks the spectrum to really roll out LTE, and that would give AT&T more Spectrum which will help. That being said it will likely hurt the consumer in the form of higher monthly fees and less phone selection.
I’m going to miss my $100 every 6 months phone service.