The move is a rare setback for Sprint's Japanese parent, SoftBank Corp, whose billionaire founder Masayoshi Son had seen the acquisition as key to taking on U.S. market leaders AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc.
Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile carrier, and T-Mobile have not ruled out consolidation in the future but concluded that a deal is unlikely to be approved at this time, the sources said. U.S. regulators have insisted that they want to keep the number of major wireless carriers at four.
"We didn't think the opposition would be this strong," a SoftBank executive said, but added: "The environment will definitely change".
The failure to reach a deal could give added impetus to a rival bid for T-Mobile by French telecoms firm Iliad ILD.PA. Iliad made a lower bid than Sprint but is in talks with U.S. cable and satellite companies to sweeten its offer.
Sprint on Wednesday named Marcelo Claure, 43, as its chief executive, effective Aug. 11, to replace Dan Hesse, who has been CEO since 2007. Hesse was Jeff Smulyan’s negotiating partner when Jeff put together the NextRadio deal with Sprint.
Claure founded mobile phone distributor Brightstar Corp, which was acquired last year by SoftBank.
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