Phone Merger

"Bigger is better in a commodity game. Four providers were too many..."

I'm definitely not an expert, so please take this question as legitimate and not rhetorical; if this quote is true, why was Bell split into so many different companies, decades ago?

It was required after a ruling of a judge. Bell was found to be a monopoly.

If then, wouldn't this merger result in a GSM monopoly for AT&T?

Shhh don't tell them that. Thats why there are regulators that are still reviewing this deal, T mobile and AT&T may have agreed but the regulators still have to approve or else the deal will not be able to continue.

I really hope this deal passes through the regulators and the FCC. As a T-Mobile customer, I can't wait to get my impatient hands on the iPhone 5. T-Mobile gets the iPhone, Apple gets 30+ million extra customers. Everybody wins! Tell this to the people in Congress.

If you wanted the iphone you should have simply joined AT&T in the first place. This is a big lose for Tmobile customers who had relatively inexpensive plans and good access to network and will now have AT&T priced plans and good access to network. The gains are few and the losses are immense. Guess I'll have to change carriers again.

Speaking from an Apple fanboy point-of-view, I don't like AT&T since they no longer have unlimited data plans, but I don't like T-Mobile either, none of their phones they currently offer is any good to me, its all second-rate Android phones or dumb phones. But I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Oh well.