T-Mobile USA CEO Robert Dotson squelched speculation about his carrier jumping onto the 3G bandwagon today, telling analysts a CFSB investor conference that T-Mobile doesn’t expect to offer UMTS services for at least the next two years.

Dotson said the carrier would delay any 3G deployment until it has enough wireless spectrum to support it. Until then T-Mobile will continue its Edge rollout, launching commercial service next year and continue building out its Wi-Fi hot spot footprint.

Of the major carriers, only T-Mobile and the Nextel haven’t committed to a 3G migration path. Verizon Wireless has already launched CDMA 1X EV-DO networks in 14 markets and plans to have a third of its footprint covered by the end of the year. In recent weeks, both Sprint and Cingular finalized their 3G rollout plans, the former committing to a complete rollout of EV-DO in 2005 and the latter achieving the same with UMTS/HSDPA in 2006. Nextel is weighing which direction to take its proprietary iDEN network and is considering both CDMA technologies and the Flash-OFDM network gear of Flarion. But if speculation about a possible merger between Sprint and Nextel turns out to be true, the question of Nextel’s 3G migration could be put to rest.

By the end of 2006, all of the top five could feasibly have fully operational nationwide 3G networks as well as the first of a series of augmentations in place carrying them beyond 3G. Cingular has already committed to high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), and Sprint is already debating a further migration to either EV-DO revision A or EV-DV, both of which would add voice back into channel and provide far more robust data capacity. Meanwhile T-Mobile USA’s parent, Deutsche Telekom, has begun deploying UMTS over T-Mobile networks across Europe.

Speculation on a Sprint and Nextel deal resurfaced today after The Wall Street Journal reported rumors that the two companies were in talks. Stocks for both companies jumped, but neither carrier offered any confirmation that two were in negotiations.