said by ISurfTooMuch:You'd think they ought to do that, but...
...they don't really have to work as hard on their network if they can eliminate a competitor.
And there's another bonus here. As the only national GSM network left standing, they'd get all the roaming revenue from overseas travelers coming here. And, although VZW has hybrid CDMA/GSM phones, not all are, so, if you want to be able to have most any phone work internationally, your only national carrier would be AT&T.
I agree, but LTE is changing that. And most international travelers won't have whatever VZW dumbphones/low-end smartphones that don't have world capability. The iPhone 4S being a CDMA/GSM world phone hybrid really does kind of change things for AT&T.