The US mobile market has been engaged in 15 years of almost constant M&A activity, from the re-assembling of AT&T from several former ‘Baby Bells’ in the middle of the last decade; to the failed AT&T bid for T-Mobile USA; the successful takeover of Sprint by Japan’s Softbank; and now T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint. Meanwhile, US operators were early to deploy 5G, but are losing their country’s imagined 5G race with China, when it comes to scale. Spectrum has been taken first from broadcasters and now from satellite operators to feed the hunger for mobile broadband. The wave of consolidation has been offset by a string of new entries to the mobile game – by cable operators, notably the formidable…