Besides the fact that allowing AT&T and T-Mobile to create one uber carrier that will hold an extremely disproportionate amount of the cellular market, a new report by the Wall Street Journal casts even more doubt on how many people the merger will actually help.

Currently there are roughly 9,200 AT&T and T-Mobile stores across the U.S. with ~41% of all AT&T stores having a T-Mobile store within 1 mile. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this is going — broke town for current T-Mobile store owners large and small.

The real kicker, however, is that T-Mobile and AT&T employees are not allowed to communicate as to which stores are actually closing giving T-Mobile store owners absolutely no heads up to prepare for possible impending financial ruin.

With already weak housing and retail economies, hearing of several thousand store closings isn’t likely to spur economic growth in the respective neighborhoods and communities that will be affected.

Hurray for less competition and price hikes!

Source: WSJ