Will Sprint Hand the Baton to T-Mobile USA?

By Rick Munarriz – May 3, 2013 at 8:00PM

NYSE: S

Sprint

There's a new publicly traded wireless carrier in town, just as one of them is getting ready to bow out.

T-Mobile USA (TMUS 0.19%) had a successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Investors bought into the company that consists of the merged T-Mobile and smaller MetroPCS. Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY 0.54%) will retain a 74% stake in the combined company.

It's good timing. A pair of bidders are making a play for Sprint Nextel (S), and the market can always use a third public player to keep AT&T (T 0.19%) and Verizon (VZ 0.03%) honest.

T-Mobile USA is losing contract subscribers, and its 43 million combined subscribers is less than Sprint's 55 million. It's also naturally a lot smaller than market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless. However, having a company check in every three months is important, even if T-Mobile's financials will be as unimpressive as Sprint's reports have been lately.

In this video, longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz explains why it's important to have a third publicly traded wireless carrier for investors to dissect.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.