AT&T CEO Warns of Higher Prices in Wake of T-Mobile Failure

That might be, because the vendors and distributors they buy from have now a surplus of materials, they want to get rid of them fast before spoilage dates and make some of the money back on their purchases, they also have to hold less stock = less space = less money spent on that too.... Publix then makes a longer term contract for medium rate prices, so its still less than when Albertsons was around but a little more than a sale price of the vendor.

With wireless companies, they arent trying to give away a surplus of spectrum they dont have, they are trying to use up as much of it as they can for the best possible experience for the prices they can charge. AT&T is no different. In this case, they are trying to recoup their spectrum loss and cash losses to T-Mobile. In exchange, once thats recouped, in a year or two, they will go back to the board and try to approve another merger of a smaller regional carrier that has spectrum where they want. This is EXACTLY what Sprint did with Sprint Affiliates, bought them out and used their spectrum, but only Nextel was their one major purchase that gave them what they needed to compete in the future. AT&T will follow on those footsteps only 15 years too late.