JeffDTD

If Son thinks there is a chance that Sprint will accept Dish's offer or they will end up in a bidding war, what purpose does an incremental increase in the Clear bid (that pulls just enough support for passage) accomplish? Some of the Clear shareholders, Crest specifically, are out there babbling on about wanting $7 or more a share. If Charlie is the Sprint winner, let Crest win as many other shareholders over as they can... $7? Heck, why not $10! Once (and if) the Clear bid fails, Clear then becomes another debt obligation for Sprint= 1) Prevent bankruptcy or up the offer until 2) the bylaws can be amended and other acquisition avenues pursued. Either way, Clear continues to be a debt obligation and another anchor around the neck of a potentially merged "Dish/Sprint" that Charlie won't have the $$$ or borrowing capacity to afford. And of course, Sprint could simply vote against a Dish acquisition of Clear, no matter how high the price. If the Clear bid fails, i'm in support of giving the shareholders a megaphone and flooding the market with insane demands. It puts Charlie in an even more uncomfortable position.

If the deal is voted down and anything else happens that causes Uncle Char-Char to think his bid for Sprint isn't going to be successful, he is going to barrel in with another bid for Clear and I'm certain it will be very, very high...... Not because it makes sense, but because if he fails to get Sprint, he will stop at nothing to complicate sprint's future in every way possible.

Are u positive you started the call in sprint coverage and were not roaming when rhe call started? Ive seen my galaxies roam and hang on to the roaming network even once they are back in native.

Im not worried about this one bit. Wander over to any of the well travelled prepaid forums and read about just how "unlimited" the data is allowed to flow with straight talk. Howard forums has a healthy thread with some users claiming their data is shut down completely and others claiming throttling at 1x speeds. While straight talk claims "unlimited", it clearly is not. The effect this has will be less than the effect virgin or boost have had

Well apparently Captain Spaulding, (err...Howdy)... Ergen has been calling everyone he knows in government and begging for them to speak out against Softbank. Here we have 79 year old Utah Senator and lifetime politican Orrin Hatch deeming Softbank a "hostile power" http://www.newsmax.c...05/15/id/504608 Of course, Hatch hails from the pre-war days and rose in importance during the Cold War era.... He once feared holding hearings on the harmful effects of nuclear testing in fear that those hearings would reveal sensitive information to the Soviet Union and China. Most recently, he tried to amend the immigration bill to included DNA testing for all immigrants. Dashing, isn't it?

I'd love a Nokia on Sprint... I wouldn't look for it on Sprint unless the Verizon one is successful, however.

Think they'd get more or less than the ~$192m they spent on it? I sure hope they look to Sprint for strategic opportunity. Perhaps Verizon's rural alliance offer is still on the table, but I fear buyout altogether

http://www.cspire.com/coverage/ Cspire now shows Sprint's LTE available in Texas/Georgia/Kansas to Cspire customers If Sprint wants LTE roaming "across 1900 850 and 700", perhaps they are trying to be the regional carrier messiah ..... but perhaps there is a chance for Sprint customers to roam onto 700mhz LTE sooner than later. In any case, its got to be music to Cspire's ears considering the 700 mhz buildout requirements and Cspire's current LTE being 1900 only

If Softbank had no plans for Clear's spectrum, they wouldn't have pushed Sprint to acquire Clear. The TD-LTE network already in use by Softbank in its home turf is validation of the drum beating Son did a few days ago about their expertise with it. Clear already sells fixed broadband. The only thing Softbank can't immediately promise is cable television on mobile. But ask yourself: How long will it take , deployment wise, to sufficiently support an explosion of video streaming on mobile devices? Until LTE is everywhere and moreso until Clear's spectrum can be integrated, an explosion of video streaming would cause undue network strain. I fully expect fixed in home broadband from Softbank and an interesting smattering of MVNO's/Regional carrier deals. Do you think Ergen will be interested in cheap MVNO options and regional carrier alliances?

You just quoted Pet Shop Boys. A man after my own heart.

Charlie also dropped this little nugget yesterday: "Even if I was given Sprint (service) for free, I wouldn't use it because it doesn't work everywhere I go. Obviously Verizon, and to a lesser degree AT&T, work just about anywhere you go," Ergen said. http://www.wdbj7.com...0,2623840.story He and his family apparently live in Littleton, CO, slightly SW of Denver. Sprint maps show a good bit of coverage there. Does Charlie even know that roaming is included in all smartphone plans? Sure its 1x, but anywhere where theres a verizon signal, it also "works". I appreciate his desire to grow coverage, but its statements like this that prove he either knows next to nothing about Sprint or is just being hateful. He also has a rude financial awakening coming if he thinks he will be able to financially justify building native coverage "just about anywhere you go"...

Captain Howdy apparently doesn't want to incur the cost of lining up the 9.3B in financing he needs to buy Sprint until Sprint agrees to let him do "due diligence" by opening their books... which for him, would fit in the chain of events occurring after they've accepted his offer. Dish Network's Ergen On Sprint Bid: We Don't Want To Play Whac-A-Mole Again That may make it sound a little like Dish is basically asking Sprint to agree to its offer before lining up the money, but that’s not the case, said Ergen. Really, he’s trying to avoid a repeat of the recent ordeal he had in pursuing Clearwire. “It was kind of like Whac-a-Mole,” he said. “Every time we answered a question, something else popped up.” http://www.forbes.co...c-a-mole-again/ I'm also giddy to learn just how desperate Uncle Charlie is to find a new business venture... He sees the writing on the wall for the product that his "meanest company in America" sells, and he's scared. Sagging Dish subscriber numbers, only 215.6m in Q1 profit, and he thinks the market will smile glowingly over a combined entity leveraged over its cap more than any other telecommunications company in the world? " 9.5B ? Eh! Chump Change! I ain't whackin that mole no more, sprint! Spread those sheets and give Uncle Charlie what he wants!!" http://www.reuters.c...E9480EV20130509

Anyone want to make hypothetical guesses on what Ergen would do to our rate plans - or what premium he would demand from us for access to network/cable tv on our phones? Im going to guess an 89.99 unlimited talk/text with 5 or so gigs before throttle and a 9.99 premium for his most basic tv package per phone, maybe 5 or so a la carte channel choices (or maybe several hours) streaming at a barely watchable compressed quality unless on wifi, then unlimited. Probably would forgo the premium content fee if you get a dish for the home. Probably cranks that up to 14.99, 19.99+ if you want more or arent willing to buy a premium channel package for your home dish. Its not like uncle charlie can just merge two companies, increase ANYTHING and not charge more. Somebodys got to pay for all that debt and all that network revision at uncle charlies table.

How can they feasibly expect to remain competitive if they don't complete their "initial LTE " until the end of 2014? I can't help but think they want to be bought out.

You know what I dont love? Tmobile roaming coverage in my state and all the states I border. A move to less efficient umts would not only take time and cost a huge portion of the users handset fees , it would reduce sprints geographic roaming and send all of their reciprocal roaming agreements up in smoke. I have zero interest in relying on the att for rural coverage

If lightsquared gets approval to use the spectrum, its just as likely to see them flip it = sell to a few regionals, a large carrier, etc. Id say the biggest priority is recovering some of that lost cash

If hspa+ (which is present in all these places and synonymous to the lte that will be deployed) hasnt caused mass exodus of customers flocking to tmobile, why would LTE? I know we love to wage war on feauxG, but outside of marketing hype, the end user experience is much the same

Not to mention Facebook. I'm the advisor of an undergraduate organization of a little over 50 men. Despite having my phone number, about a third of them communicate business or questions to me strictly through facebook messages. It pisses me off a little ...

Ergen isnt going to "disrupt" value ... he will not be offering 20 or 30 gigs a month of fixed home service for a ridiculous $30 price as suggested. No, he will offer just a smudge more than everyone else. He is a man obsessed with profits and nothing more. Getting to be fuhrer of sprint/dish isnt going to magically make him some kind of value fairy who puts an unusually advantageous offering out there. He will be reactive. It really wouldnt surprise me to see him go on a selling spree if he got sprint, dumping assets he doesnt feel are profitable to competitors to "lean up" the company.

A case will absolutely lessen your signal and in a weak signal area, that can be the difference between working and not working. I've even observed signal degradation with plastic cases. And no, those manufacturers don't build the cases based on the location of the antenna or anything else. They are primarily concerned with appearance, fit, and cost of material.

Yes, we should. But not because of his implied sympathies in his blog about the positives that could have evolved from the ATT/Tmo merger. No, we should fear him because he's a lobbyist. Enough grease and any wheel turns, especially with veterans like him. Flipside, he may be even more likely to approve the Softbank transaction than the outgoing.