Japan's Softbank Talking to Banks for T-Mobile USA Takeover Bid:

Japan's Softbank is said to be holding meetings with banks to raise funds for a possible purchase of T-Mobile USA.

A merger of Sprint and T-Mobile in the USA has been mulled for some weeks, and as Sprint's majority shareholder, any deal would need Softbank's financial clout.

SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son was reported to have held talks with at least five banks to finance a possible bid, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

He is said to be looking to raise around US$20 billion to buy Deutsche Telekom's 67% stake in T-Mobile USA.

When Deutsche Telekom agreed a merger of its T-Mobile division with MetroPCS it agreed not to sell any of its shares on the stock market for 18 months, but a clause allows a trade sale of its entire stake to a new buyer.

Deutsche Telekom hasn't held any talks with Son or Sprint on its stake in T-Mobile, said two of the people, though the German company is said to be open to selling it.

Firefox OS Smartphones Go On Sale in More Countries:

Telenor has announced that their first Firefox OS phones went on sale in Hungary last week and sales begin in Serbia and Montenegro now. The mobile network operator also announced plans to bring Firefox OS phones to Asia in 2014.

Followed by a wave of launches in Latin America in October, Firefox OS phones have also launched in more European markets recently.

In the last few weeks, Deutsche Telekom started offering Firefox OS phones through Telekom in Hungary and Cosmote in Greece. Earlier this year, Deutsche Telekom launched Firefox OS phones through T-Mobile in Poland.

Firefox OS based smartphones are now available in 13 countries with more coming soon.

In related news, Geeksphone, a Firefox OS smartphone vendor appears to be working in a new handset that can support both Android and Firefox in the same phone.