Are you ready for an unlimited 4G data plan price war between Sprint Nextel Inc. and T-Mobile USA?

That seems to me to be a likely outcome of the fed's approval of the T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger Tuesday, since third-ranked Sprint is still an easier target to try and take subscribers from than either AT&T Inc. or Verizon Wireless.

T-Mobile reverted back to unlimited data plans last summer. Sprint, of course, has always made a big selling point of unlimited. Although neither carrier yet goes beyond smartphones in the unlimited stakes, tablets and laptops are still capped.

An unlimited 4G data scrap will be a bit of a phony war to start. Sprint only has LTE in 67 markets so far. T-Mobile hasn't launched LTE yet but markets HSPA+ as "4G."

Nonetheless, both are working on buildouts now. So the unlimited LTE rumble could be well and truly on by 2014.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile