The initial wireless phone industry in the United States had many
competitors, but due to mergers and acquisitions the industry has become
highly consolidated. This paper documents the history of the
consolidation. More importantly, I use the geographic path of
consolidation to distinguish whether consolidation has been motived by
retail market power or efficiency explanations. One efficiency
explanation is that consumers prefer national coverage areas. I use data
on roaming agreements in the early cellular industry to analyze whether
contracts can substitute for roaming agreements. Finally, in joint work
with Patrick Bajari and Stephen Ryan we estimate the consumer valuation
for national coverage areas using plan demand data