That’s not all cash, of course, but quite a bit of it actually is. The bid consists of $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock. This is a bigger bid than the $20.5 billion that Softbank announced it would be willing to offer for a 70% stake in Sprint. Based on these figures, Dish would effectively be paying $4.76 per share for Sprint, which is still lower than the $6.22 at which the stock closed on Friday evening.

The goal is to get some cross-promotion action going on. Dish Network only has a customer base of 14.2 million people, but Sprint has 47.5 million subscribers. If Dish is able to convert some of those Sprint customers away from their current TV providers and over to Dish instead, they come out as quite the winner. Of course, they’d have no problem promoting Sprint to their existing Dish subscribers, too. This kind of cross-promotion is nothing new.

What’s interesting is that whether or not Dish is able to successfully acquire Sprint, it will likely still want to get its beak wet in the wireless business. Dish has already expressed interest in merging with T-Mobile USA and it also had a look at Clearwire. And let’s not forget that Dish owns 40MHz of spectrum in the 2GHz band with no network to run it on.

[Source]

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Tailgating before the big game can be a lot of fun, but you could also be missing out on all the other games that are going on around the league during that time. Yes, everyone could whip out their smartphones and tablets to watch some of the streaming stuff, but wouldn’t it be better to get a true HD satellite signal on a true HDTV from the back of your truck, or RV? Now you can.

Dish Network has unveiled the Tailgater. This is a portable satellite TV system that weighs just ten pounds and can easily fit in the back of nearly any vehicle. From there, you connect the Tailgater to your HD Solo Receiver (it doesn’t work with DVR receivers), which in turn connects to your HDTV. Yes, this means you could be lugging a TV in the back of your truck too, plus a power generator or inverter, but that’s the price you pay for true NFL fandom.

The Tailgater portable HDTV system takes power from the connected receiver box via a coaxial cable and it is able to receive up to 1080i signals, as well as 480i, 480p, and 720p.  The Tailgater is available on its own for $399 or as a combo with the HD Solo receiver for $499 from Dish.

The post Dish Network Tailgater offers portable HD satellite from the back of your truck appeared first on Mobile Magazine.