The biggest shakeup to hit the U.S. wireless market in at least 15 years is now upon us. Following a nearly two-year battle, with many ups and downs, T-Mobile US and Sprint have officially merged, the companies announced today.

One hurdle, a ruling from the California Public Utilities Commission, remains, but a proposed approval with conditions has already been issued and the CPUC’s commissioners are expected to vote on that proposal later this month. 

The culmination of the deal also means that T-Mobile US’ post-merger executive shuffling is underway. John Legere, a combative and often snarky showman credited with turning around T-Mobile’s fortunes, has left the position of CEO and has been replaced by Mike Sievert, who previously served as president and COO, effective immediately.

The U.S. mobile industry hasn’t experienced a shock of this magnitude since AT&T’s failed attempt to take over T-Mobile in 2011. That effort, to some extent, put this outcome in motion as T-Mobile continued to gain market share and improved its network performance as Sprint’s prospects declined precipitously.

T-Mobile US and Sprint walked away from two previous attempts to merge in 2014 and 2017. The operators’ latest quest to merge, which began in April 2018, was held up by a group of state attorneys general that filed a lawsuit in a bid to block the merger. 

Those that have opposed the merger, including labor unions and consumer watchdogs, contended that the merger would be anticompetitive, lead to higher prices, and result in massive job losses. Indeed, fewer jobs has been a recurring consequence of almost every wave of consolidation during the last few decades in the U.S. telecom industry.

The operators cleared the final legal hurdle almost seven months after the Department of Justice (DoJ) reached a complex deal with the companies that would allow satellite television provider Dish Network to become a viable fourth nationwide operator of 5G services. The Federal Communications Commission followed that decision and formally approved the deal strictly along political party lines in October 2019.

“Before the merger, it couldn’t get any better for T-Mobile,” said Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics. “They were executing extremely well, it grew faster than its peers combined in a lot of quarters.”

T-Mobile was the last of the big four nationwide operators to deploy 5G, but it pulled in the lead when it activated the first "nationwide" 5G network in December, covering a potential population of more than 200 million people. Sprint's 5G network expansion efforts effectively ran out of gas during the summer after it fulfilled its plans to activate the service in nine markets. The 5G strategies of both carriers have largely hinged on the merger.

However, T-Mobile now faces a significant undertaking in combining operations with Sprint. “The best way is not to integrate it but simply migrate the customers over onto T-Mobile’s platform and ramp [Sprint’s network] down as quickly as possible,” Entner said.

“The Sprint network internally is a Frankenstein type thing. There is a chameleon interface that integrates all the different platforms and it’s a nightmare,” he said. “Running the Sprint network to make things work is not very clean, and that has been a problem for them for many years.”

Outside of those network integration challenges, which T-Mobile says it has been preparing for, Entner expects T-Mobile to continue with its current playbook. “John Legere’s personality served T-Mobile immensely because they were the underdog, they were the runt that everybody kicked before” Legere joined the company in September 2012, Entner said. 

During his tenure, Legere revitalized the company, lambasted its competitors, and fostered a series of initiatives that changed many long-held practices in the industry. He also helped the operator grow from the nation’s fourth-largest to the third-largest carrier, and “now they’re larger than AT&T” as a combined entity, Entner noted.

“They’re not the little guy anymore,” he said. “They’re a big boy now like everybody else.”