On Apr. 29, T-Mobile and Sprint, being the country’s third- and fourth- largest mobile service providers respectively, had announced on reaching a $26.5 billion merger agreement with plans to open more stores, create more jobs and build a next-generation wireless market. As T-Mobile and Sprint continue to seek an official agreement with government regulators, both companies claim that merging would yield benefits for both sides. As news of the new fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology, declared as a vital national priority by the White House, continues to spread, service providers have expressed interest in investing the next-generation data technology to expand their influence and appeal to more potential customers. According to The Washington …show more content…
Customers will later be migrated over to T-Mobile, which could take up to three years, if government regulators approve the merger, according to The Washington Post. “The merge for T-Mobile and Sprint creates an expanded scale that would allow the companies to not only become a strong competitor in creating a biggest 5G wireless network, but with the combined amount of money and resources they will later have, this growing process could also potentially create more jobs and keep prices low for current and new subscribers,” said Senior Jonathan Dong. Attempts to merge with T-Mobile have happened before in the past, involving AT&T in 2011 and Sprint in 2014. However, due to strong opposition from the government regulators and company officials, insisting that four national wireless providers would maintain a “healthy level of competition in the industry,” these deals failed to ever be completed. According to the New York Times, Tom Wheeler, who was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission when the merger was opposed in 2014, states that removing competition through the means of merging would be as effective as keeping the top four service providers separate because “the four-firm market is proven for consumers in lower prices and better