Can Sprint really buy T-Mobile?

[Commentary] A resurgent T-Mobile underpinned by aggressive pricing and a boisterous CEO, a new Sprint backed by hyper-fast data and a Japanese telecom giant, and the duopoly -- AT&T and Verizon -- up to its usual antics: just when it seemed like we'd finally reached some semblance of stability in the US wireless market, we hear the news that Sprint may be ramping up to make a bid for T-Mobile. If the report holds water and Sprint elects to proceed, we could be in for an unexpectedly turbulent 2014 (and beyond) for the American wireless landscape, as regulators and executives spar over the viability and wisdom of allowing the United States' number three and four carriers to combine. And who would win that battle?

For the Federal Communications Commission, it’s primarily a question of whether a consolidation would help or harm competition. Two years ago, with Sprint and T-Mobile both hemorrhaging subscribers, teaming up might have put the two in a better position to square off against the Big Two; since then, though, the smaller carriers have gotten their desperately needed LTE efforts off the ground. T-Mobile has started adding customers; Sprint hasn't, but it's now backed by SoftBank's wallet and ambition. In other words, it's fair to call T-Mobile and Sprint more "competitive" now, at least by some metrics -- and that makes a merger, which would bring the United States down to just three national wireless providers, less appealing in the eyes of competition-minded regulators. But regulation aside, none of this touches on the technical nightmare that engineers at Sprint and T-Mobile would face in combining their networks.