All the perks with none of the pain

Verizon, the nation’s number one wireless carrier, gave its un-official blessing of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger (officially it remains neutral). Why? Well if you ask Verizon, it comes down to spectrum distribution. It says that the merger will free up more of the spectrum that data-hungry smartphones are gobbling up at faster and faster rates.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, if you ask the Justice Department, the answer is money. The DOJ “argues the combination of the country’s second- and fourth-largest wireless carriers would hurt competition and raise prices for consumers. Those effects could benefit a large carrier like Verizon, analysts have said.”