T-Mobile USA Has No Urge to Merge

Deutsche Telekom AG Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges says there’s no need for further consolidation of the U.S. mobile market, apparently squashing the notion that T-Mobile USA might try to buy Sprint Nextel.

“There are four national players in the U.S. market for 300 million households, while in Europe, where we have 350 million households, there are 50-70 operators,” Hoettges says, according to Bloomberg. “We believe in our chances of being the challenger.”

Getting its third generation network strategy into higher gear remaining a key challenge.

“There is no question that we lost customers because many of our customers couldn’t get 3G.,” Hoettges says. “We now have to make sure that we can capitalize on the network in the top-10 cities where we have invested.”

Deutsche Telekom gets 24 percent of its revenue from T- Mobile USA, which saw its revenue drop 2.3 percent in the most-recent quarter.

On top of that is what T-Mobile USA can do about fourth-generation network capacity, which will require additional spectrum or wholesale sourcing.

So far, T-Mobile USA hasn't ruled out wholesale sourcing or additional spectrum acquisition. Clearwire's 4G network is rumored to be a contender, if T-Mobile decides to source spectrum rather than acquire more spectrum.