A Sprint - T-Mobile merger deal may be agreed upon next week

After discussions that went on and off last year, T-Mobile and Sprint - the third and fourth largest mobile carriers in the US - may finally be on the verge of merging. Earlier this month, the two carriers restarted merger talks, and Reuters now reports that they've made significant progress in this regard.

According to unnamed sources that have shared information with Reuters, T-Mobile and Sprint could "successfully complete deal talks" as soon as the coming week. However, sources tell Reuters there's "no certainty" that a final deal will be reached.

Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank, the majority owners of T-Mobile and Sprint, are still undecided on how they're going to exercise voting control once (and if) the deal goes through. If the deal does go through, the newly-formed company would have a bit over 127 million US wireless subscribers, thus being almost as big as Verizon (over 149 million subscribers) and AT&T (over 138 million subscribers).*

Assuming SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom agree on a deal, they'll still have to wait for US authorities to approve the merger. If that eventually happens, it will be interesting to see what name and branding the new supercarrier is going to use.

* - numbers include postpaid, prepaid, and connected devices subscribers.