American direct broadcast satellite service provider Dish Network Corporation, founded by Charlie Ergen, is reportedly planning a major foray into the wireless services industry by putting in a bid for Clearwire Corp.
Dish has made a $2.28 billion offer to Clearwire, which is higher than Sprint Nextel's $2.2 billion offer. Dish's interest in Clearwire are two-fold. One, Clearwire owns crucial mobile spectrum. Second, Dish has already spent $3 billion in the wireless space acquiring much-needed capacity.
Reports suggest that Dish's offer to Clearwire is principally guided by Ergen's move to amass spectrum, which is a highly valuable commodity in the telecom industry. But any success hinges on Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. carrier that owns just over 50 percent of Clearwire, giving its approval. Sprint is also keen to buy up the rest of Clearwire.
There are also indications that Dish's aggressive offer has much to do with its intent to counter Sprint - with which it has crossed swords in the past over regulatory approvals for spectrum acquisitions.
Clearwire has stated that the special committee of the board of directors has not made any change to its recommendation of the current Sprint transaction.
The recent development is also expected to have a bearing on Japanese telecom firm Softbank Corp's plan to buy 70 percent in Sprint for $20 billion.
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