DISH Makes offer to buy Sprint (Rescinded)

14 million subs, 300 plus channels in HD. Through in multiple independent viewers in most of those subs homes. Not doing that over cellular anytime soon. Those Dishes will remain for quite some time.
 
Charlie will make a play for Direct TV next. What a combination that would make!

Not going to happen. He already tried once and the (governing board which I can't remember SEC?) wouldn't let them have a monopoly.
 
Not going to happen. He already tried once and the (governing board which I can't remember SEC?) wouldn't let them have a monopoly.

i think today that would actually have a chance to happen but don't see chuck doing this unless he's desperate to spend all of his dough, especially if he does get sprint.
 
If this deal goes through, Dish/Sprint will be creating a revolutionary new market (similar to the first Apple smartphone). The phones/tablets - whatever - receive two types of feed. The Unicast feed is conventional and provides voice to voice and point to point data streaming like other of today's wireless devices. But, the revolutionary part is the Broadcast system that beams out a single stream to multiple receivers (smartphones/tablets/whatever). So, they could stream a football game on the Broadcast system and you get it for a fixed monthly fee along with anything else on the broadband feed (no data caps). See post 75 for their illustration of how it works
 
I am now very thankful I never pursued going the Hopper route. Yes, I seriously considered it, crunched the numbers, etc. But, me and my 722k with TV2 split to two TVs are doing just fine at $66 (w/ tax) - and I have yet to get carpal tunnel in my finger from having to physically skip commercials :D
 
Yeah come on FCC listen to Charlie and I think this would be a better match up but we will see what the FCC does.

Dish Urges FCC to Pause While Sprint Ways Options Ergen's Game of Acquisition Chess Continues

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Dish-Urges-FCC-to-Pause-While-Sprint-Ways-Options-123924

Sounds like he's just trying to be disruptive more than anything else. Does he think if he gets in the way of the Softbank buyout that Sprint wants, they'll go running to the guy who messed up their business plan? They need that Softbank money know to add bandwidth and finish up the Clearwire thing.

If Dish wants to get into the cell phone business, how about launching their own provider? Honestly, if they somehow do acquire Sprint, I see them ultimately sinking it and a lot of the other providers that it owns or who piggyback on it's towers to use the bandwidth for television purposes and more limited bundling of cell service. You'd wind up with Verizon and ATT high-end, and T-Mobile low-end with little incentive to do much in the way of pricing or phone selection or building more towers because it'd have the prepaid/low-income market wrapped up. Basically, a mid to high end duopoly and a ghetto monopoly that gets very stagnant with lots of price hikes and restrictive terms. Get ready for Verizon and ATT to start offering you three year contracts, $300 subsidized phones, and slowly degrading service, with T-Mobile not improving knowing it's the only option for many. Dish/Sprint customers would get trapped in a bundle*.

Whereas if Softbank gets Sprint, it's a boost for Sprint, Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, Ting, Republic Wireless, and down the line, and T-Mobile has to step up to compete- and they provide some downward price pressure on Verizon and ATT, who can charge a little more for their premium phones and services, but not so much more that customers leave en mass for Sprint, T-Mobile, Virgin, Boost, etc., and can keep requiring contracts, but can't make them so lengthy and onerous that people go to the no contract providers. And then Dish can jump into the fray as major provider #5. That could be a competitive market place with 5 major providers and maybe 4-5 smaller ones that rent space on the big networks or are owned subsidiaries of them. Lots of customer choice in terms of pricing, networks, terms of service, phones, etc.. And lots of incentive for everyone to keep expanding their networks to more places and making them faster and more reliable.


* I really hate bundles- I'd rather be able to have a different provider for every service and be able to pick the best in each, and have them offer their best prices to non-bundlers. Bundling sort of puts a lot of people in situations where they need the best price on things and can only get it in a bundle, and thus wind up with service providers they don't like for one or more of the services because it's the only way to get them all of the services affordably. I.E. I may have to drop Dish tv for Comcast cable because Comcast is my Internet and when my subsidized pricing runs out, a bundle with tv might be the only way for me to keep both TV and Internet. If there were no bundles, bundling providers have to just offer the lower Internet and TV prices individually. I'd love there to be a law against bundling, because then customers could choose TV, Internet, and phone providers all separately and select the best option for them in each category instead of just having to have one provider for all three, or one provider for two of the three to obtain the best price, even though they really only want to get one type of service from that provider and the other services or services from another provider or providers. And of course if you still wanted one company for every service category, you could still do that.

If Charlie and Dish really want to lobby the FCC or Congress or whatever over something, how about lobbying to end the practice of bundling? Say, sure, Comcast can offer customers TV, Internet, and phone all in one, but that each has to cost the same individually as it does in the bundle. That way, if Comcast Internet customers want Dish TV, they can do so without a price penalty. Cable having bundles is what hurts Dish television more than anything. People know their Internet goes through the roof without the cable TV long-term, and thus are pushed away from satellite that way. Ending bundling would level the playing field.

Perfect world- we'd have a bunch of providers in every category, and no contracts or bundling. Then, every customer every month theoretically has the option to switch, and can mix and match providers in whatever way he/she thinks makes the most sense. It'd result in a lot more competition and choice, and probably lower prices and better service as companies have to compete month in and month out in every category where they want to retain or acquire customers. Contracts and bundles make it tough for customers to leave and make choices even if they are getting service degradation, price hikes, etc., at least to a point.
 
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Pretzel, you are missing an important part here... the ability to offer terrestrial broadband would be an incredible ability for Dish as it would no longer have to worry about leverage from broadband companies when Dish wants to offer streaming services simply for Dish.
 
Some of the articles I have read in the past few days on DSLReports makes it seem like it is not looking good for Dish in their attempt at grabbing Clearwire or Sprint. Sprint still seems to think that SoftBank will get it.
 
Some of the articles I have read in the past few days on DSLReports makes it seem like it is not looking good for Dish in their attempt at grabbing Clearwire or Sprint. Sprint still seems to think that SoftBank will get it.

Since Sprint accepted the offer from Softbank they really have no choice at this time but to say that they favor the Softbank offer. If Dish finds a partner in someone like Apple or Google, they could bring even a better offer if Softbank raises their offer.
 
I don't think that companies considers Charlie seriously. Besides his record of partnerships have turned out not to work out very well. Remember the Microsoft partnership and the original webtv/dishplayer? I would be very surprised if Sprint did go to Charlie after all is said and done.
 
How the shares are voted is what will determine the outcome. Who can put $ in the eyes of voting shareholders?

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I don't think that companies considers Charlie seriously. Besides his record of partnerships have turned out not to work out very well. Remember the Microsoft partnership and the original webtv/dishplayer? I would be very surprised if Sprint did go to Charlie after all is said and done.

The board has an obligation to maximize value to the shareholders. If they determine that the Dish offer is legitimate and workable, they would be breaching their fiduciary duty if they didn't explore it. Odds are, SoftBank will have to up their offer to complete the deal.
 

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