Business

It’s show time

Sprint is calling Charlie Ergen’s hand — forcing the Dish telecom billionaire to show his cards, or fold.

America’s third-largest wireless carrier has broken off talks with Dish, frustrated the Englewood, Colo., pay TV company has not provided committed financing for its $25 billion bid to buy the business, a source close to the situation said.

It is giving Dish until June 18 to make its final offer.

“Charlie was having difficulty with the Sprint board,” the source said. “They gave him a deadline to firm up financing, and he goes silent.”

The impression insiders have is Ergen has not been very aggressive in lining up financing, the source said.

Japanese carrier SoftBank, meanwhile, raised its offer for Sprint late Monday from $20 billion to more than $21 billion and now faces a June 25 shareholder vote that looks promising.

Paulson & Co., Sprint’s second-largest shareholder, said it intends to vote all its shares in favor of the SoftBank offer.

A source familiar with the hedge fund mogul’s thinking said, “Paulson said ‘enough is enough.’ Let’s put Ergen’s feet to the fire” and see what he has.

Billionaire Ergen, a former professional Blackjack player, owning unused spectrum he believes is worth more than $10 billion, may actually have one last card up his sleeve, and it might be an ace.

“I know Dish has had conversations with Google,” the source close to the situation said. “They’ve been quite detailed.”

The talks, the source said, that have taken place for almost a year have continued over the last few months.

Google, the source added, might help finance the Dish bid with up to $10 billion. The search giant also could guarantee the rest of the financing until the deal closes.

“My suspicion is Ergen and Google are not disagreeing on tactics but are having trouble signing a contract,” the source said.

Google, the source closely following the situation said, wants to help carriers offer low-cost broadband so that more users are able to use its services.

“They have really ramped up their look at wireless,” the source said.

The cellular duopoly of Verizon and AT&T do not necessarily see low-cost broadband as benefiting them and view Google as a foe, the source said.

A trader following the situation said, “I’ve heard Google is real.”

The Wall Street Journal, back in November, reported that Dish and Google had held talks to launch a wireless service.

If Dish and Google partner on a purchase of Sprint, it would have a good chance of getting regulatory approval, several sources said.

Google would claim that it was not in the wireless space and was helping strengthen a third carrier, the source said.

Meanwhile, Sprint faces a vote tomorrow on its proposal to buy the piece of Clearwire it doesn’t already own.

Conventional wisdom is Sprint will need to raise its offer, or Clearwire will need to postpone the vote.

SoftBank’s new offer values Sprint at $7.65 a share. Sprint’s shares rose 2.4 percent to $7.35.

Neither Google nor Dish returned calls for comment.