Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Reported talks between Dish and T-Mobile reflects pressure in the telecom industry to consolidate. Laura Mandaro/USA TODAY 
 
 T-Mobile CEO John Legere speaks during the Un-carrier 9.0 event, Wednesday, March 18, 2015, in New York (Photo: John Minchillo/AP Images for T-Mobile) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO — Dish Network is in talks to merge with T-Mobile, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. 
 
 The talks to combine the second-largest satellite TV provider with the fourth-largest wireless carrier are in the "formative" stages, one person familiar with the situation told the newspaper. 
 
 But the companies have agreed that Dish Chief Executive Charlie Ergen would be the company's chairman and T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere would become the combined company's CEO, other sources said. 
 
 T-Mobile spokeswoman Janice Kapner declined to comment. Dish spokesman John Hall also declined to comment. 
 
 Under pressure from the Internet, the telecommunications industry is experiencing a wave of consolidation. AT&T is in a $49 billion deal to buy Dish competitor DirecTV. 
 
 As far back as two years ago, Ergen cited T-Mobile (TMUS) as a compatible merger partner. And last month during Dish's (DISH) earnings call, Ergen said that T-Mobile remains a possible partner and that "we are keeping all of our (options) open." 
 
 Jan Dawson, an independent technology analyst for Jackdaw Research, said the combination "makes perfect sense." 
 
 "Given the increasing consolidation in the market, T-Mobile and Dish were in danger of becoming the lone single-service providers left in the market, with everyone else combining TV, broadband, and wireless," Dawson said. "T-Mobile has a growing subscriber base and network but not enough spectrum, while Dish has lots of spectrum and no network, so their assets are very complementary. This merger would also go some way to overcoming some of T-Mobile's lack of scale compared to its larger competitors, AT&T and Verizon." 
 
 Recon Analytics telecom analyst Roger Entner is also bullish on the deal, though he wonders about the explosive personalities of Ergen and Legere. "I don't know if they'd blow each other up or the competition. Either they will get along just splendidly or they will very quickly hate each other." 
 
 T-Mobile last year was in talks to be acquired by Sprint. The deal ultimately collapsed out of fears that regulators would not approve the merger. 
 
 The expectation is that T-Mobile and Dish would not face similar regulatory opposition. 
 
 T-Mobile is the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the USA, though it's closing in on Sprint. 
 
 Under Legere, T-Mobile has emerged as a disruptive force in the industry, the self-proclaimed "Un-Carrier," scrapping onerous wireless contracts and agreeing to pay early termination fees for people who switch. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1M6m1n3 ||||| A deal between Dish and T-Mobile is akin to two people who hook up because they are the last ones left in the bar at closing time. 
 
 Both had their eye on other combinations but saw their efforts foiled. And more than anything, neither company wants to go home alone. 
 
 Plus, while not the perfect catch, each partner has its good parts. T-Mobile is an aggressive, fast-growing upstart in wireless, while Dish has deep spectrum holdings. Together, they can offer a combination of services that neither was able to do solo. 
 
 Both companies have long sought merger partners, with Dish having previously sought to buy Sprint, and T-Mobile having tried to sell itself to AT&T and to merge with Sprint. Dish was outmaneuvered by SoftBank, while regulators shot down T-Mobile’s deals with AT&T and Sprint. Dish had also approached rival DirecTV for a possible tie-up last year. 
 
 A Dish-T-Mobile deal, though, is unlikely to encounter the same degrees of regulatory scrutiny that T-Mobile encountered in those prior efforts. A Dish deal would maintain four national wireless carriers and arguably strengthen the No. 4 wireless carrier while the other two transactions would have removed a competitor from the market. 
 
 The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Wednesday that the two companies were in early-stage talks on a deal that would see outspoken CEO John Legere running the combined company, with Dish chief Charlie Ergen serving as chairman. 
 
 Ergen, a gambler as both hobby and profession, has been continuing to amass spectrum even without having a clearly outlined strategy for how it would be used. 
 
 A T-Mobile transaction would effectively answer that long-running question. 
 
 One big uncertainty, though, is whether the combined entity would have access to the cash it needs in a very expensive business that demands a consistent, huge investment in network improvements. 
 
 Both Dish and T-Mobile have been perennially on the list of tech’s most eligible bachelors. Dish’s core video business has been weakening for years, and without access to broadband that it can sell, its prospects haven’t been appealing. So Ergen has been steadily stockpiling wireless spectrum, presumably in the hopes of either flipping it or using it as bait to sell his entire company. 
 
 Dish’s video business, which boasts 14 million subscribers, does have some value for T-Mobile, since it would give the company a new revenue stream. And Ergen has been experimenting with Sling TV, an “over-the-top” service that delivers TV over the Internet and can be used by customers who don’t subscriber to Dish (or T-Mobile). 
 
 T-Mobile, meanwhile, has been gaining subscribers due to an aggressive turnaround effort spearheaded by Legere. But T-Mobile, for all its successes, is still far smaller than AT&T or Verizon in wireless and lacks other services to bundle (such as TV or high-speed Internet). Verizon and AT&T both offer TV in some regions, while AT&T is in the process of acquiring Dish’s satellite rival, DirecTV. 
 
 But a hookup won’t solve all of the combined companies’ issues. Neither company offers high-speed wireless to the home, though Dish has at times talked about using its airwaves to offer a type of broadband service known as fixed wireless. 
 
 A T-Mobile representative declined to comment. Dish representatives were not immediately available for comment. 
 
 Additional reporting by Peter Kafka.
– Today's merger rumblings: Dish Network and T-Mobile are in talks to merge, sources tell the Wall Street Journal. Though details, including a purchase price, have yet to be finalized, the companies agree that Dish CEO Charlie Ergen would be chairman of the combined company, while T-Mobile CEO John Legere would be the new company's CEO. The deal comes amid similar ones, like AT&T-DirecTV and Charter-Time Warner-Bright House Networks. So why should you care? If you're a Dish customer: The deal would give Dish a "robust broadband Internet" offering, always a good thing for a TV company in this day and age. It would also hand Dish the cellular network it needs to use its billions of dollars worth of wireless licenses. The merger "makes perfect sense," an analyst tells USA Today, because without it, "T-Mobile and Dish were in danger of becoming the lone single-service providers left in the market, with everyone else combining TV, broadband, and wireless." If you're a T-Mobile customer: The company is still no match for AT&T or Verizon in terms of size, but its capacity would jump thanks to the aforementioned wireless licenses. The analyst continues: "T-Mobile has a growing subscriber base and network but not enough spectrum, while Dish has lots of spectrum and no network, so their assets are very complementary." Even if you're not a customer of either company: re/code offers up a pleasantly colloquial explainer that calls the deal "akin to two people who hook up because they are the last ones left in the bar at closing time," which is worth a read even if you're not usually into mergers & acquisitions. The deal is still far from a sure thing, but the Journal doesn't see a big fight from regulators, "because the companies are in different industries and because a deal could in theory create a stronger wireless competitor."