AT&T is buying T-Mobile USA, according to an announcement released late on Sunday. This merger, if approved by the Federal Communications Commission, will bring the no. 2 and no. 4 operators in the U.S to form the largest operator, racing past Verizon with a customer base of 130 million. The $39 billion deal, which will get Deutsche Telekom $25 billion in cash and a 5 to 8 percent stake of AT&T, is raising some eyebrows – and not just because the sheer scale involved.

“It is hard to find winners apart from AT&T and T-Mobile shareholders” Om Malik wrote as an early response.. “It doesn’t matter how you look at it, this is just bad for wireless innovation, which means bad news for consumers.” This, as well as the prospect of 3 companies controlling ¾ of all U.S subscriptions is the reason the industry and analysts expect a huge, perhaps unprecedented regulatory risk.

AT&T is standing up for itself, and argues that its acquisition proposal is perusing the same good causes as President Obama’s national broadband goals. The Huffington Post covered the story from the FCC angle, and gave its take on the national broadband plan as it relates to AT&T’s takeover – that’s the end of all those Sprint T-Mobile rumors.