Dish & T-Mobile Spotted Canoodling In Corner Of Merger Meat Market

tmodishMaybe Dish and T-Mobile are just friends who had a little too much to drink one night. Maybe they were commiserating how they were still single while each of their failed merger partners are making plans for a future of little satellite-equipped Death Stars. Regardless of how they got to this place, Dish and T-Mobile are apparently in those early, giddy, everything’s rosy days of thinking about getting their merger on.

T-Mobile was recently told “It’s not you; it’s market consolidation,” by Sprint, which pulled out of its long-gestating plan to acquire the pinkish wireless company from Deutsche Telekom. Since then, the only company that’s come calling is some French guy.

Dish, already playing second fiddle to DirecTV in the satellite business, is watching as the sexier competitor gets even more attractive by associating with AT&T. In 2002, when Dish was still under the EchoStar umbrella, it attempted to acquire DirecTV, but the deal fell apart when it became clear that regulators would not let it happen.

So Bloomberg reports that Dish CEO Charlie Ergen recently threw some pebbles at T-Mobile’s window, inviting it to sneak out and, ya know… see what happens.

So far, things haven’t gotten very hot and heavy, with everyone apparently waiting until after the upcoming wireless spectrum auction in November.

Bloomberg’s sources say Ergen has been eyeing T-Mobile for years, occasionally dropping hints to Deutsche Telekom that maybe the two companies could be good together. But they say he also hasn’t even approached a bank to advise his company on a possible deal, meaning this may all just be pointless flirting.

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