Smartphones, tablets and computers all pull data from the Internet, but people still pay two different bills: the high-speed connection they get at home and the wireless connection they get outside. Dish Network, the pay-TV operator, wants to bridge that gap, Brian X. Chen and Mark Scott report in Tuesday’s New York Times.
Dish Network said on Monday that it had submitted a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel, the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier after Verizon Wireless and AT&T. It says that a merger between the two companies could roll television, high-speed Internet and cellphone services into a single package that would be faster and more affordable for consumers.
“It really means that we’re going to give consumers what every consumer wants,†Charles W. Ergen, Dish Network’s chairman, said in a phone interview. “They want broadband and video and voice in their home and want the exact same thing outside the home. And they want it to look and feel and priced outside the same as it is inside.â€
Dish Network’s bid is an effort to scuttle the planned takeover of Sprint Nextel by the Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank, which agreed in October to acquire a 70 percent stake in the American cellphone operator in a complex deal worth about $20 billion.
On Tuesday, SoftBank struck back, Mark Scott reported on DealBook. In a brief statement, it said its offer still represented better value for shareholders than Dish Network’s “highly conditional preliminary proposal.â€
The markets, though, disagreed. Shares in SoftBank fell as much as 9.3 percent in Tokyo on Tuesday, and finished down 6.8 percent by the end of the day.
