Sprint's case for acquiring fellow carrier T-Mobile hinges largely upon the argument that the U.S. wireless market in its current state is not conducive to competition that can better serve customers. Government officials are still wary of the proposal, citing consolidation concerns, but Cincinnati Bell's recent sale of its entire wireless spectrum to Verizon may help Sprint make its case.

Cincinnati Bell announced Monday that it had agreed to sell its entire wireless spectrum to Verizon in a $210 million deal. Cincinnati Bell is a dominant player in Cincinnati and Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky suburbs, but does not have a national footprint like the big four (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile). Still, the deal highlights how frustrating it is for anyone to compete with such an already-set-in-stone wireless market.

"After much deliberation, we have determined that our customers are best served by other wireless offerings in the market," Cincinnati Bell President and CEO Ted Torback says on the company website.

"Our business has been in decline for five or six years. We've been harvesting the business really ever since we got into data centers," Torbeck told the Cincinnati Business Courier. "This is absolutely the right time to make this deal. It was probably the highest value we could get at this point in time."

The underlying message is clear: "We simply cannot compete with the big guys anymore, and even going forward in this industry is futile."

So how does this pertain to a possible Sprint and T-Mobile merger?

The Cincinnati Bell scenario illustrates exactly what Sprint chairman and SoftBank Corp. chief executive Masayoshi Son is trying to tell U.S. government officials: it's really hard to compete in the wireless market now against Verizon and AT&T. Without increased scale and the kind of presence bigger wallets bring to the table, any efforts to make strides in the wireless industry are hampered by the "duopoly" of AT&T and Verizon. This especially applies to spectrum assets, and the upcoming 2015 FCC spectrum auction that will have huge implications for years to come.

"I brought the network war and price war (to Japan). I'd like to bring that to the States," Son said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to industry officials.

"I would like to provide an alternative to the oligopolistic situation that two-thirds of American households can only get access to one or two providers. I'd like to be a third alternative with 10 times the speed and lower price."

"We have the spectrum. We have the technology. But we need scale, efficiency to make an investment for the network," Son told reporters after his speech. "We are already free cash-flow negative. So we can start a small fight but it does not scale, it does not last, it's not sustainable. We need to have a real fight, a long and deep and heavy fight. And for that, we need scale."

T-Mobile CEO John Legere agreed in an interview on Bloomberg West.

"If the government wants us to have a competitive environment, you are going to make sure that the duopoly doesn't use their prowess to crush the little guys and have this sub-1 GHz spectrum be moved all to them," Legere said. 

"We're all going to need better scale and capability. The question starts to be: How do you take the maverick and supercharge it? We either need more spectrum and capability, a lot more investment, or we need consolidation."

Even with a combined customer base, Sprint and T-Mobile, the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers in the United States respectively, would still have less customers than AT&T alone. Numbers alone don't tell the whole story, but it's becoming harder and harder to brush aside the whole "duopoly" argument.