The third largest wireless broadband carrier in the United States spent Monday making the rounds with reporters, expressing its opposition to the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. We got a call around noon, and weren't surprised to learn that Sprint, which depends on AT&T for network connections, opposes the deal. But we wondered whether the company would accept the marriage if the government attached various public interest conditions to the union.

"Sorry, no divestitures, no fixes, no conditions," Vonya McCann, Sprint's senior vice president for Government Affairs told us. "We want it stopped."

Well, what if the government came up with some better special access rules for commercial voice companies that want to connect to AT&T?

"It won't fix it for us," she repeated. "We want it blocked."

There are no possible deal-sweeteners that could win you over to this merger?

"No. It's bad consumers," McCann insisted. "It's bad for industry. It's bad for the country. It creates a huge duopoly. We don't see how it can fixed."

And how are you going to stop this?

"We're going to make the case that the government should block the transaction."

The government can stop this deal if it wants to. Ars readers who followed the Comcast/NBCU merger drama know how the drill goes from here. As per the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, AT&T and T-Mobile will have to file their proposal with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Then various government agencies will consider the impact of the union from an antitrust and public interest perspective, with Congress chiming in via Commerce/Science and Judiciary Committee hearings.

We're betting those agencies will be the DoJ and the Federal Communications Commission. An official from the latter outfit has already told the Wall Street Journal that the merger faces considerable skepticism.

"There's no way the chairman's office rubber-stamps this transaction," the FCC official told the Journal last week. "It will be a steep climb to say the least."