NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Comcast Corp. may look to make its own deal with a wireless phone provider rather than working with a previously announced consortium of cable providers, according to a published report.

But the Wall Street Journal, while speculating on what kind of deal Comcast (Research) may be looking to make, said that all the company's talks with wireless providers to date have been in the context of the consortium talks.

Comcast formed a consortium last year with other leading cable operators to study alternatives in the wireless sector.

The newspaper reports that Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has had conversations about a possible wireless deal with Sprint (Research), although it isn't clear in the report whether the deal would involve an acquisition or more limited agreements such as marketing deals or having Comcast resell wireless service.

The newspaper says it has also held talks with T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (Research), and the No. 5 U.S. wireless phone provider.

The other large wireless phone providers are owned by the nation's local phone companies such as Verizon Communications (Research) and SBC Communications (Research) and are therefore unlikely to make deals with their cable operator competitors, according to the Journal report.

Sprint, which is in the process of merging with Nextel Communications Inc. (Research), another wireless phone provider, has been active in pursuing marketing deals with other cable companies.

The nation's No 2 cable provider, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint recently announced a deal allowing the cable company to offer cell phone service on a trial basis in Kansas City, Mo. Time Warner Cable and CNN/Money are both units of Time Warner (Research). Cablevision (Research) also plans to soon sell Sprint cellular service on its Web site.

The newspaper said that in a call with analysts to discuss first-quarter results last month, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts reiterated that Comcast is mostly interested in integrating cell phone service into its broadband, phone and TV offerings.

"Having a cell phone bundled with cable and high-speed data has not proved to be a marketing differentiator that we feel that we're concerned about," he said. "But we are very much focused on where wireless is going."

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