f the Industry The Canceled AT&T/T-Mobile USA Merger In March 2011, AT&T announced an agreement to acquire T-Mobile. The merged company would boast 131.4 million mobile subscribers, which is 43.3 percent of the total mobile subscriptions in the United States. The CTIA, a nonprofit wireless indus- try association, reported that by December 2010, there were 302.9 million connections in the United States. The three largest mobile providers would have had 284.1 million subscribers, or 94 percent of the total connections if the merger had been approved. To support its application for merger approval, AT&T filed comments at the FCC stating the following. It experienced an 8,000 percent increase in data traffic on its network between 2007, when it launched service for Apple's iPhone, and 2010. It didn't have enough spectrum for upgrades in some markets. It needed T-Mobile's spectrum for capacity to upgrade to more efficient network protocols. It had increased competition from providers such as MetroPCS and Leap. MetroPCS had double-digit market share in some key markets. USCellular had double-digit market share in many markets. Most of AT&T's network is currently based on a technology that does not use spectrum efficiently. This decreases its overall network capacity. As AT&T upgrades its network to the current version of LTE, it will be able to carry 30 percent to 40 per- cent more traffic than it now carries, with the same amount of spectrum. AT&T started making LTE available in the fourth quarter of 2011. In August 2011, the Justice Department sued to block AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile, saying that the merger would harm competition and would likely lead to higher prices for consumers because T-Mobile offers more affordable service than AT&T and Verizon. It further reasoned that AT&T could substantially increase capac- ity by upgrading its network. In November 2011, the FCC also voted to block the merger. A report it made public stated that the merger would result in layoffs in the merged company and no competition 