T-Mobile and Sprint Were Allowed to Merge Because Sprint Sucks ⇥ theverge.com

Laurel Wamsley, NPR:

T-Mobile is closer to taking over Sprint after a federal judge rejected arguments by several states that the merger would stifle competition and lead to higher prices for consumers.

The deal would combine the country’s third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers. The new company, to be called T-Mobile, would still be the third-largest, after AT&T and Verizon.

U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero concluded that the proposed merger “is not reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market.

Nilay Patel of the Verge read the decision and put together a terrific explanation of how Judge Marrero arrived at that conclusion:

And… it turns out that Judge Marrero thinks CEO John Legere and the rest of T-Mobile’s executives are extremely cool and smart and that Dish Network is definitely trustworthy and that everything is going to work out great.

Also, the judge thinks that Sprint sucks. Really, if there’s one major takeaway here, it’s that Victor Marrero, a federal judge selected by Bill Clinton for a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary, thinks that Sprint is a bad company with a crap network run by dummies. This is the law now.

In Canada, our three major carriers operate in near lockstep. The United States is now down to three major carriers. Should be fine, right?