According to a new Bloomberg report, Deutsche Telekom AG has held talks with Sprint about selling T-Mobile and combining the nation’s third and fourth largest wireless operators. That’s really not new, considering Sprint was responding to the same rumors of a T-Mobile merger last Summer, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse at the time suggesting such a deal “makes sense.” According to this new report, the talks have been “on and off,” and a final deal may not be reached. Piggyback this on our exclusive report from earlier today about Sprint letting Lightsquared piggyback on Sprint’s LTE build, and Sprint has been very busy with their Clearwire alternative contingency plans. Bloomberg’s sources frame a Sprint merger or Clearwire spectrum purchases as an either/or proposition:
Talks have been on and off, and a deal may not be reached, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are private. The companies haven t been able to agree on the valuation of T-Mobile….T-Mobile is also discussing buying wireless spectrum from Clearwire Corp. as an alternative to a merger with Sprint, two people said. Deutsche Telekom s Hoettges said last month that buying U.S. wireless spectrum from Clearwire is only one option for the German phone company. He ruled out an outright sale of T-Mobile in the U.S.
So, talks have included discussion of Deutsche Telekom owning about 50 percent of a combined T-Mobile USA-Sprint, or T-Mobile continuing on their own using spectrum acquired from Clearwire to fuel further network upgrades. It’s not clear where any of this leaves Clearwire, though you can expect all of this to be sorted out within the next three to six months, and we may have some juicy Clearwire inside information shortly.
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