It seems like this rumor reemerges about every other month. And here it comes again. Bloomberg News reports that Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile USA, the fourth largest wireless carrier in the U.S.,  is exploring a deal to merge the unit with Sprint Nextel.

There are all sorts of interesting Seattle angles to this story — the first being that T-Mobile is based in Bellevue.

Furthermore, Sprint Nextel is led by Dan Hesse, the former AT&T Wireless CEO who gained some notoriety in the Seattle startup community for leading heavily-funded Terabeam Networks during the dot-com boom days.

And then there’s the wild card of Clearwire, the Kirkland broadband wireless company which is bankrolled by Sprint and others. T-Mobile and Clearwire have been discussing possible partnership deals, while Sprint is currently involved in heated negotiations with the company over Sprint’s usage of the company’s 4G network.

And to make things even more interesting, John Stanton — who founded what is now known as T-Mobile USA –currently serves as chairman of Clearwire.

Follow all of that?

This deal could get really muddy, and there are certainly some big dollars at play which could help define the wireless landscape in the U.S going forward. Sprint, the third largest wireless carrier in the U.S, currently has a market value of $14.2 billion.

Based on the Bloomberg report, there does appear to be some momentum to the concept this time.

“In general, all options are open in the U.S. — the sale of the whole business or of parts,” Deutsche Telekom Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges told Bloomberg today. Bloomberg notes, citing an unnamed source, that Deutsche Telekom could end up owning 50 percent of the combined entity.

This one could be fun to watch, and may have serious implications for the mobile industry. How do you think it will play out? What will they call the new company? And what could it mean to the operations in Bellevue?

John Cook is co-founder of GeekWire, a technology news site based in Seattle.

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