It seems to come down to the fact that its German parent, Deutsche Telekom, is conservative and risk-averse, mirroring the philosophy of its biggest shareholder, the government of Germany, which controls about 30% of the company.

"Because of that government control, they don't want to play around and they want to get money for their investments and show some return," said Will Stofega, an analyst at IDC.

Deutsche Telekom is reported to be exploring an initial public offering, spin-off or merger with a rival of its U.S. unit, but the German carrier and T-Mobile USA won't comment on the report, which cited unnamed sources.

T-Mobile has about 33 million customers in the U.S., and is No. 4 in the country's wireless market, with about 14% market share behind No. 1, Verizon Wireless, No. 2, AT&T and No. 3, Sprint Nextel.

Despite all its good qualities, T-Mobile did report losing 77,000 wireless customers in the third quarter of 2009, about the same time Verizon and AT&T were each adding millions of customers.