You don't understand how the phone companies are structured.
My point was about industry consolidation. There are only 4 big operators with nationwide infrastructure... if the Sprint deal goes through there will be 3 big operators.
Fewer real nationwide cellular companies means all cellular prices will rise!
Consumer Cellular really just rebrands and resells AT&T's infrastucture services. They are a brand, a store front (web too) with a a little back office support. Depending on their deal with AT&T, billing, help line, etc... could be AT&T. You would not know it.
If someone using an small MVNO calls for help.. the call center rep will see who the MVNO is and respond "Hello, Joe Blow Cellular... may I help you?"
If you did your homework you would find the unit charge (per minute within a banded tier) is close to the same as AT&T. They just slice the minute plans a little differently (terms). IOW, less cost via less use! On an apples to apples basis, one might save a couple of bucks.
Do you think AT&T is going to let any competitor, reselling AT&T minutes, have a real competitive advantage on price?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Cellular
The only reason an MVNO is allowed to exist is it keeps the justice department off the backs of the oligopoly (the 4 big phone companies.. actually 2 really big phone companies and 2 smaller ones).
There are also some regional networks that have local infrastructure (i.e, towers in a city or metro area only), the complete their nationwide network by using a similar agreement with the 4 larger nationwide companies (piggyback on their nationwide network). IOW, their nationwide networks are MVNO-ish.
Wikipedia - Mobile virtual network operator