An industry shakeup may be headed our way. Industry intel indicates that the Japanese carrier Softbank is in advanced talks to acquire Sprint. Several different reputable news agencies including Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported today that Softbank is in final negotiations to purchase the Now Network for 1 trillion yen (about $12.8 billion US dollars). Of course, this news sent Sprint's stock soaring. It is up over 17% already. This is on top of the fact that it has already doubled in value in just a year.

This news could mean a lot of things for Sprint. For one, it could bring an influx of infrastructure capital to help improve their current network and push out Sprint's new LTE network even faster (even though they are already ahead of schedule). It could also mean that we might finally start seeing some of that unique high-end gadgetry that only seems to come out in Japan.

Of course, the most desirable outcome would be an influx of advertising dollars for Sprint. This way, the company could get even more aggressive and potentially start stealing more marketshare from AT&T and Verizon. If that happened, then those other two behemoths might be more inclined to start getting competitive with their pricing again. What do you guys think? (besides wishing that you had bought some Sprint stock last year.)

Source: Engadget