Sprint, the third-largest wireless carrier in the United States, announced its fourth quarter results Tuesday, revealing that while it is experiencing customer growth, the company is still losing money.

Could it be that a merger with T-Mobile, despite the immense hurdles, is the only quick shot of adrenaline to the brand?

Sprint, owned by Japan-based SoftBank, announced that it suffered a $1.04 billion loss, or 26 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of 2013. Not a pretty number, but Sprint still did better than expected. Wall Street had Sprint's revenue ending Dec. 31 at $8.99 billion -- Sprint posted revenue of $9.14 billion.

Sprint is clearly in a hard place. Despite adding 58,000 new postpaid subscribers in the fourth quarter, Sprint is doing worse than it has in the year before when tablet subscribers are taken out of the equation. The nation's two largest carriers AT&T and Verizon added more contract subscribers that Sprint during the same period. A large part of the customer defection has to do with the carrier's bland brand image, coupled with its slow(er) adoption of LTE technology.

Which is where T-Mobile comes in.

T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, added more subscribers during the 2013 fourth quarter than any other carrier, despite its overall standing at fourth place among U.S. wireless carriers. The carrier's UnCarrier strategy, coupled with its aggressive marketing, has made it a favorable dark horse in the wireless market. Let's not forget, T-Mobile is the company that did away with traditional contracts, and even offers to pay for customers' early termination fees if they switch over to its network.

Sprint is attempting to acquire T-Mobile, the argument being that Verizon and AT&T own so much of the U.S. wireless market that the only way to break that duopoly is to make the little guys bigger Together, Verizon and AT&T tally a reported 75 percent of wireless customers in the United States.

"If the government wants us to have a competitive environment, you are going to make sure that the duopoly doesn't use their prowess to crush the little guys and have this sub-1 GHz spectrum be moved all to them," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said during a television interview on Bloomberg West. Legere has recently been more supportive of the proposed Sprint takeover in recent weeks.

"We're all going to need better scale and capability. The question starts to be: How do you take the maverick and supercharge it? We either need more spectrum and capability, a lot more investment, or we need consolidation."

The argument, however, doesn't sit too well with the U.S. government.

Both the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission have expressed concerns over the Sprint and T-Mobile deal. Approval from both agencies is necessary for the merger to go through, but the fear of higher costs resulting from consolidating the U.S. wireless market from four major carriers to three still looms large.

AT&T attempted a similar takeover of T-Mobile in 2011, and was shot down by antitrust officials. T-Mobile is a "self-described 'challenger brand,' that historically has been a value provider," the Justice Department stated in 2011.

Even Sprint chimed in, saying, "Removing T-Mobile from the market would substantially reduce the likelihood of market disruption by a maverick. T-Mobile, as one of only four national carries, provides a critical constraint on AT&T's consumer retail prices."

Sprint, although it is close to obtaining financing to acquire T-Mobile, sees the opposition. Although initially gung-ho, Sprint is now reportedly hesitant in its approach due to the amount of public opposition to a T-Mobile acquisition. A deal for T-Mobile will probably take a few weeks longer to hammer out than Sprint board members had hoped.

Sprint's recent fourth-quarter earnings report tells a tale that is likely to continue until the carrier is able to bolster its network and brand image. Against Verizon and AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have little chance of catching them technologically soon, given the different rates of LTE adoption. Instead, as both Sprint and T-Mobile are arguing, combining the two carriers might be the only way to realistically combat Verizon and AT&T in the near future. The only question that remains is: will this help or hurt consumers?