What's happening now? Since the merger plan was announced on April 29, the two companies have been making their case for its approval. Sprint and T-Mobile have to convince federal regulators that they can't effectively compete with Verizon () and AT&T () without merging, and that letting them join forces will be beneficial to consumers. T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who is an excellent salesman, began laying out that argument in the press release announcing the deal. Essentially, he's trying to make it clear that the cellular market is no longer limited to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, while also emphasizing that scale has become even more important.