Once again, Dish is at the center of merger rumors, and this time they sound close to reality. According to The Wall Street Journal, the US pay TV provider is in talks with T-Mobile USA, and those are advanced enough to have worked out details of leadership, though the precise price and cash/stock mix remains unresolved. If the deal materializes, it will hardly be a surprise. The US telecoms market has been in a state of continuous consolidation for years, as the players chase the scale, spectrum and infrastructure to lead in the quad play segment and to build platforms for emerging opportunities like the internet of things (IoT). Dish’s arch-rival, DirecTV, is being acquired by AT&T (which once tried…