Will T-Mobile be the first big UK mobile player to go in a new wave of consolidation?

Analysts are saying that there are simply too many players in what is a viciously overwrought competitive environment. They also that in addition to reducing the number of opportunistic minnows nipping around in the shallows and nibbling at crumbs, at least one of the Top Five big fish will also have to go on the slab if the market is to re-balance itself.

Those most often mentioned as being the weakest amongst the major mobile operators are 3 and T-Mobile. Indeed, talk of 3's imminent demise has become so routine over the years that it has been relegated to the level of background static - a comforting white noise that no one takes much notice of any more.

Time and time again Li Ka-shing, the chairman of 3's parent company Hutchison Whampoa, has made it very plain that 3 is in the game for the long haul and that, courtesy of his long pockets and stubborness he will not allow the venture to fail. That remains the case.

This leaves T-Mobile as the sole UK Big Five mobile network operator (currently standing at Number Four in the rankings and generally acknowledged not to be doing as well as it might) most likely to be acquired by, merged with, or otherwise subsumed into another.

And now it seems the process has started.

Last month, T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom (DT) wrote down the value of its UK business to just £3.3 billion; a devaluation that the market took to be a signal that it is open to buyout offers.

Step forward then Orange and Vodafone.

Sources say Orange recently made a substantive offer to buy T-Mobile's British operation but that it was rejected by T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom (DT).

Simultaneously, Vodafone is reported to have proposed exchanging its Turkish division for T-Mobile UK. For historical reasons DT has a strong interest in Turkey. Germany has a sizable Turkish-speaking minority, the second and third generation offspring of the original post-war influx of gastarbeiter. Furthermore, DT has a controlling interest in the Greek telco OTE and, whilst Greek and Turkey could hardly be described as the best of pals, ownership of a Turkish mobile company would give Deutsche Telekom a strong position across the eastern Mediterranean.

The German state still retains an anachronistic but significant interest in DT and both the government and the powerful private equity company Blacksone have, in the past, indicated that they would like to see T-Mobile divest itself of its under-performing UK business.

However, only a couple of weeks ago, DT's CEO, Rene Obermann (who himself used to head up T-Mobile UK ) told shareholders and the media at the carrier's latest financial update meeting that a new CEO of the UK division, Richard Moat, has just been appointed and must be allowed the time to stamp his authority on the carrier and reorganise the business.

Mr. Obermann said the new boss should be allowed that leeway "in the medium term" but gave no indication as to how long that medium term might be in practice. In failing to do so DT's top man actually fueled speculation about T-Mobile UK's future rather than dampening it down - and the vultures, smelling blood, are circling.