With AT&T buying T-Mobile this would make them the biggest cellular company in the US market, followed by Verizon and Sprint respectively. AT&T has 96 million subscribers, while Verizon has a subscriber base of 94 million followed by Sprint with 50 million, and T-Mobile at 34 million. Let's pretend the merger is done and there are only 3 major phone companies now headlining the cell phone market. How long do you think it will be before AT&T spikes its rates because they can? Think about it, you're in a 2 year contract, with unlimited everything for $99.99 a month plus taxes and other additions (phone replacement program) leaving your bill around $120.00 a month. Now skip ahead a bit and your a few months from being out of your contract with AT&T/T-Mobile and the only plan they have is: Unlimited calling with 200 text messages $99.99 Unlimited Text messaging is $19.99 Data Plan $19.99 (2 Gig monthly) AT&T now says you must switch to the new plan, as your old plan is obsolete. This means you have to add a data plan you had before which was unlimited and if you own a smart phone its non-negotiable. So not only would their be a limit set to how much usage is available to you in a month but no way of knowing when you have surpassed the 2 Gigs of allotted usage. On top of this you are faced with counting the amount of text messages you would normally send, or spend the extra money purchasing an unlimited text messaging plan. With the current plan from AT&T to have everything you had before, you are paying an extra $39.98 Bringing the current bill with taxes and additions to $163.98 No one knows how the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is going to affect things till it is complete. Imagine if Verizon and Sprint merge it could potentially make thing's worse with plan pricing between Verizon and AT&T so close in comparison. Verizon could be bigger than AT&T and do the same thing. A merger with Sprint Would be easy since they use the same CDMA technology. If there's only 2 major cellular company's how do you think it will affect prices? Now that is a scary thought! Taken from my blog www. globalmerchantsolution.com/wordpress/