In a bold and surprising move this morning, Dish Network made a $25.5 billion offer to purchase Sprint — a takeover that would satisfy the satellite TV company’s wireless ambitions, while also squashing takeover efforts by Japan’s Softbank.

Dish’s offer is 13 percent more than the $20.1 billion Softbank offered for a 70 percent share of Sprint last year. The big difference: Dish’s deal would be a complete takeover, while Softbank’s would leave Sprint as a separate public company, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The move follows an informal bid by Dish for Clearwire earlier this year. Sprint offered to buy out Clearwire for $2.2 billion back in December, but Dish jumped in with its own $5.5 billion offer. It seemed like Clearwire shareholders were leaning towards Dish’s higher offer, but then Clearwire ended up taking $80 million from Sprint to stay afloat, which indicated that they were back to considering  Sprint’s deal.

By buying Sprint, Dish would have access to both Sprint and Clearwire’s precious wireless spectrum, and it would have the country’s third-largest cellular network. Dish already has more than $9 billion worth of wireless spectrum, and it won approval from regulators last December to use it. But building a network of its own would take forever and likely cost more than what it’s offering for Sprint.

The deal would enable Dish to offer a similar variety of services as competing cables companies: TV, home phone, and Internet service. Charles Ergen, Dish’s chairman, says customers would be able to get Internet access from Sprint’s network via antennas on their roof.

If Dish successfully kills Softbank’s deal with Sprint, Ergen says that it would pay off the $600 million breakup fee owed to the Japanese company.

The real question for Sprint’s shareholders: Are they willing to go with a suitor unproven in the wireless industry? Dish may have a bunch of useful spectrum, but it doesn’t yet have any experience in the mobile world. Softbank, on the other hand, has 32 million mobile subscribers in Japan.

Illustration: Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat

In a move that will give Sprint much of the spectrum it needs to continue building out an LTE 4G network, the carrier announced this morning that it will buy the remaining shares of Clearwire for $2.2 billion, or $2.97 per share.

A regulatory filing last week revealed Sprint’s intent to buy out Clearwire, though at that point Sprint was looking to spend around $2.1 billion, or $2.90 a share. Sprint will still offer up ton $800 million in interim financing to keep Clearwire afloat, until the deal is completely done.

The takeover still needs regulatory and Clearwire shareholder approval, and it’s contingent on Softbank’s 70 percent stake in Sprint being finalized. Both the Softbank and Clearwire deals are expected to close in the middle of 2013.

Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse, with his usual bluster, spoke highly of the deal:

Today’s transaction marks yet another significant step in Sprint’s improved competitive position and ability to offer customers better products, more choices and better services. Sprint is uniquely positioned to maximize the value of Clearwire’s spectrum and efficiently deploy it to increase Sprint’s network capacity. We believe this transaction, particularly when leveraged with our SoftBank relationship, is further validation of our strategy and allows Sprint to control its network destiny.

Sprint initially took advantage of Clearwire’s 4G WiMax network with a partnership back in 2008, but that network doesn’t hold a candle to 4G LTE speeds today. Sprint spent $1.6 billion to bail out Clearwire last December, sold off its Clearwire majority voting rights in June, and then reclaimed its majority voting status in October for $100 million (after Softbank said it was paying Sprint $20.1 billion).

After all the back and forth, it was only a matter of time before Sprint finally took over Clearwire. But it remains to be seen if this merger will actually help Sprint, which has to compete with Verizon and AT&T’s more mature LTE networks.

Photo via William Ross/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

And here I thought the Nokia takeover rumors were over. Samsung has declined to comment on new rumors that it’s eyeing the ailing Finnish phone company, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“It seems like a market rumor and we don’t comment on rumors,” a Samsung spokesman said.

It’s unclear of what’s driving the takeover rumor, and frankly it doesn’t make any sense at all. Samsung has only recently made it to the big leagues of smartphone success with its Galaxy S Android phones last year. It seems foolish for the company to buy Nokia when it would have to spend significant effort retooling the problematic company, which would also distract it from focusing on its own phones.

Last week, Microsoft was rumored to be considering Nokia’s smartphone division for $19 billion. And while that deal made much more sense than a potential Samsung takeover, there was still little that Microsoft had to gain by buying Nokia. (Nokia CEO Stephen Elop later called those rumors “baseless.”)

Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham seems to agree with me, telling the WSJ: “Samsung has seen tremendous growth and is launching new pads trying to target Apple, whereas Nokia is clearly going backwards losing market share very quickly. I don’t see a lot of value in Samsung acquiring Nokia.”