Telecoms group BT has been in early stage talks to buy either EE, the wireless group owned by Deutsche Telekom and France's Orange, or O2. The latter used to be BT's mobile arm (under the name Cellnet), before it was spun off in 2001. Spain's Telefonica bought it in 2005 for £17.7bn. Telefonica is exploring options for its UK business, while EE had admitted it is considering merging with a fixed-line operator.
What the commentators said
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