It's no longer a big secret that the second-largest wireless service provider in the US is incredibly well-positioned to challenge Verizon's industry dominance soon in terms of everything from subscriber numbers to download speeds, overall network experience, and coverage after and .

What might be lost on many casual watchers of the US cellular business is the colossal financial effort required to reach this position, especially at the dawn of a new mobile connectivity era. 

alone was estimated at over $31 billion based on T-Mobile's March 31 stock ...