No ‘Cozy Triopoly’

In the US wireless communications market, antitrust regulators blocked so-called four-to-three mergers—mergers of two of the four largest competitors—in 2011 and 2014. But authorities did allow then-No. 3 carrier T?Mobile to acquire then-No. 4 Sprint in February 2020, after T?Mobile agreed to several conditions. The merger was, and remains, the subject of intense debate over its effects on consumers.