Network consolidation may be a must in the relatively near future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be Sprint and T-Mobile that merge. In fact, New York Post‘s sources claim that it won’t happen and that the FCC and DoJ are very skeptical on the matter. Even going so far as to say that it’s “dead”. This would go along with another report published recently by Re/code, also claiming that a deal between SoftBank and T-Mobile is far from imminent.

“I don’t see any prospect of it going through,” one source close to the situation said. “It’s dead.”

Regulators are skeptical of such a merger, a second source said of the talked-about tie-up.

But perhaps more interesting is another claim made by the publication a little further down in the piece.

In January, Sprint angered FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler when a story appeared in the Wall Street Journal about a proposed Sprint-T-Mobile deal the morning Sprint was scheduled to meet with Wheeler to discuss the possible bid, a third source said.

Now, there’s no telling the validity of these claims. Source information isn’t always on the money, but it’s an interesting thought nonetheless. With the number of reports we’ve seen claiming the company wants to make a deal to buyout Deutsche Telekom’s stake in TMUS, it’s worth considering how desperate SoftBank’s chairman and CEO is. Perhaps he sees it as Sprint’s only way to compete in the marketplace effectively, making his investment worthwhile.

Source: NYP