The U.S. regulator has frequently argued that for the benefit of the U.S. consumer, the U.S. wireless market needs a minimum of four competitors, fending off AT&T Inc.'s attempt to acquire T-Mobile US Inc. in 2011 and again sending strong signals to Sprint Corp. to back off from a bid for T-Mobile. However, I believe that the U.S. network consolidation is inevitable as smaller carriers such as T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular find it more and more difficult to generate the level of cash flows required to invest in upgrading and maintaining existing networks.