T-Mobile may merge with MetroPCS

Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, said on Tuesday that it is in talks to buy MetroPCS.

The move would boost the size of T-Mobile, the fourth largest wireless carrier, as it tries to take on dominant competitors AT&T and Verizon.

The German company said "significant issues have not yet been finalized" and no contracts have been signed. But Bloomberg reported that Deutsche Telekom’s supervisory board is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to approve the transaction.

MetroPCS is a regional carrier that offers a prepaid monthly service without a contract. It has 9.3 million subscribers, which would be combined with T-Mobile's 33.2 million subscribers.

The merger would still leave T-Mobile behind third-place Sprint, which has about 56 million customers, and well behind industry leaders Verizon and AT&T. 

The deal would give T-Mobile access to MetroPCS's airwave licenses as well as its next-generation LTE cell towers. T-Mobile is scrambling to catch up with the other national carriers since federal regulators killed its attempt to sell itself to AT&T last year.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department would have to sign off on a merger between T-Mobile and MetroPCS, but the deal would be unlikely to raise the same competition concerns as the AT&T deal, which would have created the nation's largest carrier.

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