Not that you asked, but I have some things to say.

The past few years have seen multiple mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry. I would be hard pressed to name one that hasn't had some form of M&A action, buying or merging with a competitor generally focused on B2B services (AT&T being a bit of an anomaly, their acquisition strategy seems more focused on content and the consumer market). I've seen these happen, over the decades, and generally see a stronger more capable company emerge...at some point...in time...after much, well, pain. For a long time now, I've called it the Tele-Merge Flu. It's cyclical, and I've seen a few iterations over my career. They all seem to have a bit of the following: Disparate systems, painfully complicated to begin with, will now be merged (or attempted to be merged) with generally a Frankenstein's Monster result, a broken shambling, groaning thing, with the local residents always on the verge of storming the castle with torches and pitchfork...

When I began my career in the telecommunications field, it was a sexy industry. I worked for WorldCom, who owned UUNET, one of the original big boys of Intenet Service Providers. We rode scooters, had egos, and were the future of technology. We were the internet. Oh, and about WorldCom...you probably remember them. "One of the largest corporate scandals, ever." heralded the cable news hawkers, and various publications. They made Enron look like choir boys (Enron caused around a $74 Billion loss/impact to the shareholders....WorldCom was $180 Billion in loss/impact. Tyco often gets mixed in when discussing corporate scandals of the late '90s/early '00s. Tyco's impact was around $150 Million...lightweights). The scandal created a crater within the telecom indsutry that we, to date, are still trying to climb out of. The telecom industry lost its luster, pivoted often to a "low-cost/zero-sum-game" approach, and spent the next 20 years losing relevance ...