After reporting large losses in the UK, USA and Poland there are numerous rumours that T-Mobile is up for sale. The company is expected to make write downs of over £1.6 billion for T-Mobile UK, but despite this financial analysts believe the business could still be worth around £3.2 billion.

Those in the frame at the moment include 3, BT and Orange, although Virgin may also bid as its service sits on top of the T-Mobile network and would therefore be affected. BSkyB has also been mentioned as a possible contender, although through their parent News Corp they’ve previously turned down the opportunity to get into the mobile phone market.

The effect on existing customers will depend upon who succeeds in purchasing the brand. Companies such as 3 have a similar stance on low priced voice and flat rate broadband packages. Of course these customers could be the first to obtain the G1 Android handset, which would be part of any deal.

T-Mobile is sharing a network with 3 so maybe a merger could be on the cards as they are maybe unlikely to have the money to buy it outright and it could just be too big a financial stretch given the recession.

However, there are also links with Orange having sold its Netherlands subsidiary to T-Mobile last year in a deal where Orange acquired Ya ISP in Spain from Deutsche Telekom, one of T-Mobile’s largest shareholders. Some believe T-Mobile and Orange could be a good partnership in the UK.

So what of BT? The problem here is that they’re very close to Vodafone (which is the underlying network on BT's cellular service) and BT has many other issues that could be a hurdle to get around.

So, 3 would possibly be the most likely although Orange has more money for an attractive deal. But remember Vodafone and Telefonica are the biggest European mobile operators and neither will be happy about a larger player emerging out of the deal.

Talking about selling mobile phones, do you want to sell your mobile phone? If you’d like to sell your old mobile phone for cash then Fonebank will give you a good price and as it’s being recycled it’s good for the environment too.