In a desperate attempt to gain foothold in the quickly growing mobile market, Dish Network made a $25.5 billion unsolicited bid to acquire Sprint Nextel.

Dish wants to be able to offer consumers a single-package deal that would include mobile phone service along with TV and high-speed Internet, much like most of the top cable companies do today. If the deal fails, Dish could find itself out of the triple-play market complete.

?For Dish, this looks do or die," said Rich Karpinski, a senior analyst at Yankee Group, Boston. "It's a pretty drastic move, making an unsolicited bid  ? even CEO Charlie Ergen said he'd have preferred to make a confidential bid  ? but it had become now-or-never for Dish."

?They'd been talking to everyone in the market and two major deals are about to close  ?  so it was put up or shut up,? he said. ?That said, if the deal doesn't go through, Dish is still sitting there with some valuable spectrum - it won't be the end of the game.

?As Verizon indicated today by putting in its own unsolicited bid for Clearwire, spectrum  ? and big chunks of it  ? will always drawn interest and bidders. But if the Sprint deal fails, Dish will likely be forced to sell off its spectrum rather than use it to build a triple-play provider.?

Stuck in the middle
Sprint Nextel is the third largest wireless carrier in the United States behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

In October, SoftBank agreed to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint in a deal worth $20 billion. Dish is offering more than the Japanese telecommunications company in an attempt to squash that deal.

The deal could be good for Sprint, which is struggling to compete with Verizon and AT&T. It will also soon face greater competition from T-Mobile USA if its agreement to acquire MetroPCS goes through as expected.

?Sprint right now is stuck in the middle of the market,? Mr. Karpinski said. ?It knows it and is working drastically to upgrade its fortunes.

?Either the Softbank or Dish deal represents a drastic rejiggering of both its fortunes and path forward,? he said. ?Right now it has a very big decision on its hands: what does it want to be when it comes out the other end of this?

?Shareholders will root for the best terms; Sprint must make sure it has a clear path to success when all the ink is dry.?

Bundling services
Sprint said it will evaluate Dish?s proposal.

Dish is pursuing the deal in order to be able to better compete as the telecommunications market consolidates. It also believes it has more to offer Sprint than SoftBank through the bundling of services, including Dish?s own spectrum.

If the Dish deal does go through, it could have a significant impact on the mobile ecosystem because it would significantly change the nature of Sprint.

?With a Softbank deal, Sprint becomes a mobile-focused operator with a ton of spectrum - including some from Clearwire,? Mr. Karpinski said.

?In partnership with Dish, it becomes a bundled service provider that must figure out how to sell Dish's satellite service, its own mobile services and future new services and bundles in a very competitive market,? he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York