Germany's Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, is considering a bid for Sprint Nextel in a deal that could merge both struggling businesses into one, to better compete against larger rivals AT&T and Verizon.

The Bonn-based company has asked adviser Deutsche Bank to study a potential multi-billion-dollar takeover bid of Sprint and could make the offer within weeks.

"We've heard that rumor several times in the last months," said Andreas Leigers, a Deutsche Telekom spokesman. "It’s our policy not to comment on market rumors."

Sprint and T-Mobile have been struggling, competing with smaller carriers for lower-profit prepaid subscribers while rivals AT&T and Verizon have attracted valuable contract-signing customers.

Last quarter, Sprint, the third-largest wireless carrier, said it shed 257,000 subscribers and reported a loss of $384 million.

T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-biggest player, said its revenue fell to $5.34 billion from $5.47 billion a year ago.

Should the deal goes through, analysts expect Deutsche Telekom to merge the two businesses into one, closely challenging AT&T's second-place spot with 78.2 million customers.

Last week, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile UK business announced plans to merge with France Telecom's Orange UK arm to create what would be the largest British mobile operator.

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1. Posted by IOWA	Tue Oct 06, 2009 3:37 am
lol tmo can't afford to buy sprint
2. Posted by mpapple10	Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:53 am
Sprints value is 10.64 billion. DT is worth over 60billion. I think they can afford it.it would just be a technology nightmare.
3. Posted by Sir_GoAtaLoT	Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:10 am
lol tmo can't afford to buy sprint T-Mobile wouldn't be buying them. T-Mobile's Parent company DT will be and yes they are different companies.
4. Posted by nunya	Thu Oct 15, 2009 4:06 am
Deutsche Telekom, T-moble's parent company is now, or shortly will be the lagerest carrie in Europe, The only problem is see with the T-Moble/Sprint mergers is how long it woulkd take to get both companies useing the same network. Can they afford to buy Sprint.no qeustion. I think the merger would be exlecent. Both companies are now concentration heavliy on new wi-fi and other internet devices.
5. Posted by IOWA	Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:48 pm
it would be a nightmare. sprint has alot of hidden assets, such as the amount of spectrum they own, which is virtually priceless, (in the near future when other companies cant keep up with the bandwith needs of people, sprint will be able to lease thier spectrum for billions in revenue alone!), and the fact sprint owns clearwire, the only 4g wireless solution in america!
6. Posted by Sir_GoAtaLoT	Tue Nov 10, 2009 7:31 am
it would be a nightmare. sprint has alot of hidden assets, such as the amount of spectrum they own, which is virtually priceless, (in the near future when other companies cant keep up with the bandwith needs of people, sprint will be able to lease thier spectrum for billions in revenue alone!), and the fact sprint owns clearwire, the only 4g wireless solution in america! Sprint doesn't own Clearwire they are just the majority shareholder. alot of companies have stake in Clearwire. Clearwire is it's own public company with it's own CEO and board of directors.

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