Deutsche Telekon's USA-based T Mobile and MetroPCS – companies that have not done well in the highly competitive U.S. wireless providers category – have agreed to merge their businesses.

Our current Customer Loyalty Engagement rankings correlate perfectly with the sizes of the wireless providers – competitive coverage maps in magazines notwithstanding:

  1. AT&T
  2. Verizon
  3. Sprint
  4. T-Mobile

MetroPCS is much, much too small to show up on our National survey and T-Mobile, which has been losing customers over the past two Brand Keys Loyalty & Engagement Indices, will gain access to airwave space to expand their broadband but not customers, at least not right away.

Connectivity is a critical driver of loyalty in the wireless category and currently T-Mobile and MetroPCS use different technologies, so their phones don't actually work on each other's networks. But with combined resources to expand coverage and build on 4G technology they might be able to become a viable competitor to the Big 3 in the category.

The proposed merger seems as if it will facilitate wireless growth and consumer choice. And, likely, yet another outlet for iPhones!