Carl Hilliard (October 25, 1937 – November 10, 2013) was an American journalist, reporter and columnist. (wikipedia)
The fewer carriers you have, the less opportunity you have for the marketplace to function properly.
My worry is that this could hurt competition.
All of the carriers are racing toward providing more and different services location services, concierge services and the core service that most people seem to want to communicate by voice is being neglected.
This can only help in terms of approving the quality of AT&T Wireless service. The latest Consumer Reports ranked them at the bottom in a number of categories.