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By Drew FitzGerald and Dana Mattioli 

Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. have rekindled merger talks, people familiar with the matter said, as the wireless rivals explore a combination for the third time in four years.

The latest discussions come just five months after a previous courtship collapsed largely over who would control the combined firm. The talks also come in the midst of an antitrust fight between the U.S. government and AT&T Inc.

It is unclear what terms the two sides are considering, and it is possible, as before, that they could fail to reach an agreement. The latest discussions are at a preliminary stage, the people said.

The talks are complicated by the ownership of the two firms. Japanese telecom giant SoftBank Group Corp. owns nearly 85% of Sprint. Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG controls T-Mobile, which is the larger company both in terms of subscribers and market value.

Joe Flint contributed to this article

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com, Dana Mattioli at dana.mattioli@wsj.com and Dana Cimilluca at dana.cimilluca@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 10, 2018 12:52 ET (16:52 GMT)

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