Deutsche Telekom Considering Purchase of Sprint Nextel?

According to a piece published by German magazine Der Spiegel over the weekend, Germany's Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile USA, is considering the acquisition of Sprint Nextel, a move that would, as Der Spiegel put it, catapult T-Mobile USA into the number one spot in the U.S. market.

So far, though, Der Spiegel has not indicated in any form where it obtained this information, and, as many have pointed out, such a deal that would see T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel merged as a single company would have to overcome many hurdles - some of which are technical in nature.

Consider that T-Mobile USA is a GSM (and, as of this week, UMTS) based carrier, while Sprint Nextel still has yet to merge the disparate networks from the individual Sprint and Nextel units, which run on CDMA and iDEN, respectively. That base incompatibility alone makes such a merger seem unlikely to us. And as Bloomberg reports, there are a number of non-technical issues at hand, such as the poor financial ratings of both Deutsche Telekom and Sprint Nextel, as well as potential issues the U.S. government would have with a foreign interest owning the largest mobile carrier in the country.

On the plus side, however, Sprint Nextel stock is trading at a low price and the dollar is quite weak against the euro, making the cost of acquiring Sprint Nextel a bit easier to choke down. Der Spiegel notes that the cost per customer to acquire Sprint Nextel would be clearly less than that which Deutsche Telekom paid when it bought Voicestream to form T-Mobile USA 7 years ago.

All of this is, of course, speculation. Deutsche Telekom has made no official statement at all so far.

Samsung SCH-i770 with U.S. GSM and CDMA Passes Through FCC

The Samsung SCH-i770 smartphone, a device headed for the U.S. market, has passed through the FCC approval process recently. Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, this smartphone appears to feature Bluetooth and WiFi, as well as some other interesting connectivity options.

The SCH-i770 packs dual-band CDMA support (850/1900MHz) in addition to dual-band GSM (850/1900MHz), indicating that this might be the first handset to be able to easily switch between GSM and CDMA networks in the USA. The FCC filing does not give any indication as to a potential carrier, though the SCH designation in the model name suggests the SCH-i770 might be picked up by Verizon.

T-Mobile to Support Nokia's Ovi in Web and Social Communities Collaboration

Nokia and T-Mobile have announced a collaboration effort to work on advancing mobile internet and social communities on mobile devices. The two will partner to offer European customers access to T-Mobile's Web'n'Walk mobile internet service, and Nokia handsets will access Nokia's Ovi suite of services.

Nokia has been working to offer several different services, such as the Share on Ovi multimedia sharing and N-Gage gaming platform. Working with T-Mobile will allow them to better position these services for consumers, and drive more internet usage on mobiles, which benefits T-Mobile. Earlier this year, the two companies announced the Nokia 6650, an exclusive clamshell handset for T-Mobile.