John Legere, the rebel telecom executive who pulled T-Mobile from the edge of irrelevance and turned it into a thriving carrier with a cult following, has overseen his last "Un-carrier" event. .

On Wednesday, as T-Mobile completed its merger with Sprint, Legere handed the CEO reins to Mike Sievert.

Legere, who became T-Mobile's chief exec in fall 2012, boasted a colorful vocabulary and employed his quick wit in ways that got under the skin of his rivals?

Legere and his team fundamentally changed how the industry operated in many ways, often to the benefit of consumers. .

Here are the ways that Legere shook up the mobile industry, made bigger rivals Verizon and AT&T sit up and take notice, and helped get us ready for our 5G future.

Before his "Un-carrier" events -- the company's name for times when it unveiled new customer perks -- became a regular thing, Legere came out swinging in spring 2013 when he eliminated contracts and offered more straightforward and lower monthly rate.

Because the service plan was cheaper than under a contract, once you paid off the phone (usually after two years), your monthly bill would fall significantly. .

The industry later jumped on the idea of giving consumers more value for their phone trade-ins. .

International dataBefore T-Mobile came on the scene, browsing the internet while overseas was a costly proposition.

But the Legere changed that, launching Simple Global, which let consumers exchange text messages while abroad without any fees, and gave them access to low-speed data for simple things like email. .

John Legere had a way with words. 

Sniping the competitionTelecom executives tended to shy away from knocking their competitors, instead preferring to focus on the strengths of their service

Those calls are usually reserved for the financial community, with executives offering an update on the state of the business and analysts asking questions.