I remember feeling sweaty when I heard this news during the Obama years but Im somehow more tolerant of this idea. We should remember that T-Mobile was disruptive partially because it could finally afford to; it won a dowry from the failed AT&T acquisition. Without those breakup funds and infrastructure, could they have pulled the last few years of growth off?
Sprint has been a zombie for a long time, in the meantime. That story looks like its always on the edge of ending really badly, ever since Nextel. So yeah, we talk about competition, but is the cellular market really healthy when half of the majors are staving off disaster on a monthly basis and living on borrowed time? What does the market do when one of them collapses and is divested from? Big Blue and Verizon wont lower their prices if that happens - they wouldnt have to, since so many customers will become captive to the new order of things.
And to answer the fantasy football Q about what the new company is called, Sprint would make more sense; the names implication is clearer than Telekom-Mobile except the brand seems so tarnished!