Scott Moritz at TheStreet filed a report this afternoon about Verizon looking at a possible Sprint buyout (sound familiar?). It’s still in early stages though:

People close to the Verizon camp say the big telco has started a so-called due diligence process at Sprint. The sources describe the work as at the “fact finding” and information-gathering stage, with no formal discussions under way.

This comes on the same day as Qwest announced a $6.3 billion merger with MCI and just days after SBC announced a $16 billion merger with AT&T. It’s merger mania.

In December 2004 Sprint announced a merger with Nextel, though the deal is still pending regulatory approval. Sprint is expected to get approval for the deal with few divestitures. A Verizon / Sprint deal would likely see significant regulatory trouble.