ARI SHAPIRO, host:
NPR's business news starts with mobile phone negotiations.
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SHAPIRO: German phone giant Deutsche Telekom is in talks with Sprint Nextel about combining operations. Deutsche Telekom owns T-Mobile USA, which is struggling to keep customers from defecting. By combining operations, these smaller players might be more able to compete with the current industry leaders in the U.S., Verizon and AT&T, as those companies work on the next generation of phone networks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.