Fast, unlimited wireless at last? What a combined T-Mobile/MetroPCS means to you

With approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice, we could be just months away from the biggest transaction in the US telecom industry in years — a transaction that would be great news for T-Mobile. But what does it mean for customers?

Turning off MetroPCS's network has major advantages: by not having to support two entirely different kinds of networks on the same bandwidth, the combined company can eventually devote most or all of its AWS spectrum to LTE — 20MHz of it in some locations, which is an extremely fat, fast data pipe. By comparison, neither Verizon nor AT&T have more than 20MHz of LTE spectrum active in any market, and each of those carriers has more than twice the number of subscribers that a merged T-Mobile-MetroPCS would. But the roll-in of MetroPCS's airwaves isn't the only thing going for T-Mobile right now — it's been collecting valuable spectrum in droves since AT&T called off its doomed deal last year.