Who wins and who loses if AT&T-Mo fails?

So what happens in the aftermath of AT&T/T-Mobile? Every operator would have a different take depending on what side of the AT&T-Mo battle lines they stood and their relative position in the mobile market.

Here’s Fitchard’s take on who would win and who would lose:

• AT&T: It may seem obvious that AT&T loses if its blockbuster acquisition fails, but AT&T isn’t as bad off as it claims. AT&T wouldn’t be able to piece together the massive 20 MHz-by-20 MHz LTE juggernaut it hoped to gain with T-Mobile’s Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) spectrum, but it’s still fairly well off spectrum-wise. The most lasting damage from the merger fallout to AT&T may be in public perception.
• T-Mobile: T-Mobile could come out of this smelling slightly sweeter than when it started. A failed acquisition means a big $3 billion payout for DT as well as the handover of $3 billion worth of spectrum to T-Mobile. That spectrum probably won’t be enough to launch a nationwide LTE network (if it were, AT&T wouldn’t need to buy T-Mobile’s spectrum,) but assuming AT&T does fork over some of its own AWS holdings, T-Mobile could build upon it to become a much stronger mobile broadband player.
• Verizon: If the AT&T-Mo merger just disappeared, Verizon would be happy: no new regulations on the wireless industry, no definitive decision to deny the mega-merger, no harm, no foul.
• Sprint: Sprint, of course, would celebrate the failure of AT&T-Mo, but ironically it might have actually benefited if the merger went through.
• MetroPCS and Leap Wireless: They would miss out on their biggest opportunity to expand for some time. Any AT&T deal with the FCC or DOJ would have required massive divestitures of markets and spectrum, all of which Metro and Leap could have picked up to either expand their footprints or add capacity to their CDMA and LTE networks.