Let them merge. Let them try to recapture some of the momentum, market share, technological innovation. It won't matter.

It wouldn't matter if every telecom company in the world banded together now, trying to stave off the inevitable. The fact remains that it is inevitable. There is no economic model I can see that allows for the persistence of regulated common carriers in an IP world. Whatever replaces it, and there are as many options as you can imagine, the attempt to recreate "big" telecom is a sign of the nearing end of the line for those companies.

Ten years from now, the venerable brand may survive, but I'll bet anything that the AT&T of 2016 isn't in the delivery business at all.