WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on Wednesday said maintaining four large U.S. wireless carriers was "good for American consumers" after news that two of them, Sprint Corp (>> Sprint Corp) and T-Mobile US (>> T-Mobile Us Inc), were abandoning plans for a merger.

Sprint "now has an opportunity to focus their efforts on robust competition," Wheeler said in a brief statement.

U.S. regulators, including antitrust chief Bill Baer and Wheeler, have been unusually public about their skepticism of a merger of the two carriers.

(Reporting by Ros Krasny and Alina Selyukh; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Stocks treated in this article : ILIAD, Deutsche Telekom AG, Softbank Corp, T-Mobile Us Inc, Sprint Corp