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Yesterday afternoon, a funny item hit my RSS reader. “SK Telecom In Strategic Talks With Sprint Nextel.” Great, I thought. He we go again with the merger cycle. A report will come out saying two companies are talking. One will deny it. If we’re lucky, the other will not deny, giving the deal hope in curious minds (and likely push the stock up). Then we’ll get a “source close to the situation” saying that yes, there are talks. And then it goes dark for a while, only to pick up steam when we’ve nearly forgotten about it. It seems we won’t get that kind of cycle with the Sprint talks with SK Telecom. While the original report said “any agreement could be weeks away,” a subsequent report says that talks are not centered around a merger at all.

Instead, new reports suggest that the two telecoms are talking about “technology collaboration.” This could mean a line of handsets, or the use of services, possibly WiMAX (total speculation). The later reports sound rather vehement that there is not any talk of a merger.

Then again, we heard this line during the Virgin/Helio talks. SK Telecom denied that there were talks when the rumors first surfaced, only to be undermined by Virgin Mobile, which confirmed reports. It seems that SK likes to play with its cards close to its chest. If Sprint approves of the strategy, what we could be seeing here is a huge runaround.

Sprint would have been a good stock buy yesterday, as the rumor pushed the stock up 9.44 percent by the closing bell.

So what are we to believe here? Are they in talks? Would it be good for Sprint? Discuss, if you so choose.

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