While there were cheers and high-fives all over the tech world when AT&T announced that they were pulling out of the T-Mobile deal it didn’t stop AT&T needing to find a solution to a major problem facing the company – wireless spectrum.
You see AT&T needs wireless spectrum, or at least they say they do, very badly and that problem got even more complicated due to Verizon doing some smart deals with cable networks to pick up their unused wireless spectrum; which has reduced the pool of spectrum available to AT&T by a large degree.
Well it seems that Bloomberg is floating a report that a possible solution to AT&T’s problem would be to acquire the Dish Network who own a crapload of wireless spectrum and even at a premium AT&T could pick up the company for a reasonable price.
With Dish Network shares trading at $29 Bloomberg suggests that AT&T could easily pay as much as $50 per share for a 77% premium.
AS far as Dish is concerned they have no real problem with being acquired as noted by company CEO Joe Clayton recently
Dish is open to a potential acquisition once it builds out its wireless telephone and entertainment businesses, the Englewood, Colorado-based company’s CEO Clayton said last week.
“We’re open to all possible options,” Clayton said in a Jan. 11 interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West,” responding to a question on future merger possibilities. “We could be acquired or we could be the acquirer.”
via Bloomberg
Chances are that this type of deal would probably have an easier time with regulators considering that Dish Networks doesn’t currently have any cellphone service which was the major stumbling block for the T-Mobile deal.
via VentureBeat
