According to Antonios Drossos, a managing partner at Rewheel, a mobile data strategy firm, “America really has three main cell phone companies – Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile – and then you have a bunch of smaller companies that piggyback off of the physical network that these other companies have. Is that the optimal way to arrange a wireless telephone and data market?”
T-Mobile merged with Sprint in 2020 and Mint Mobile in 2025.
Discussing the acquisition of Mint Mobile, Ayesha Rascoe, host of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition and Antonios Drossos, a managing partner at Rewheel, a mobile data strategy firm, addressed whether consumers stood to benefit from the merger.
RASCOE: T-Mobile says they’ll continue to offer Mint’s cheapest plan, which costs $15 a month, but does that indicate to you that this merger may be a good thing for consumers – that they’ll still have this ability to get these really, really affordable plans for those who need them?
DROSSOS: My personal assessment is that probably T-Mobile is looking to rationalize the, you know, pricing in the market by removing a competitor that has lower prices than them.
RASCOE: Back in 2020 when T-Mobile bought Sprint, there was a promise to keep Sprint’s prices in place for three years. It’s been about three years now, so what do we know?
DROSSOS: It is important to note that these promises – actually, they are not significant, and in practice they don’t really make a difference into the market because what is important to remember is that mobile prices, both the monthly prices and, as well, the unit prices, meaning gigabytes, have been coming down. If two network operators that are merging are promising to keep prices flat, well, that’s not good enough, you know, because prices are falling anyway.
RASCOE: So that’s not actually necessarily a benefit for the consumers.
DROSSOS: And to add to that, there is the many footprints, small print, and caveats and footnotes that usually, offers comes with. And in the U.S. you have a lot.
