Why Google and Sprint makes sense ...

Sprint's core postpaid business has been gradually shrinking as seen by a net loss of approximately 3 million customers during the first nine months of 2009. They have increasingly been focused on the prepaid market with recent success in their $50 monthly unlimited prepaid rate plan. Their subsidiary, Boost Mobile offers prepaid services to nearly 6 million customers in the United States. Their recent acquisition of Virgin Mobile this summer for $483 million provides Sprint another 5 million prepaid customers. Let's not forget their other 48 million subscribers. Sprint has about $20 billion in debt, 2.8 billion shares outstanding and with the recent price of $4.00/share; Google could pick up the company for a 25% premium. This would only be about $14 billion in Google stock with Google assuming their debt. At Google's share price, that's only 7% of their outstanding shares. (See Exxon's recent acquisition of XTO, all stock deal of $31 billion). Google would have the spectrum, WiMax/4G, and access to Sprint's R&D. This is the fastest way they can become a carrier. The open Android OS would still be available to other handset manufacturers and market acceptance would be a result of who creates the better user experience.