Report: Sprint Proposes Charter Tie Up

Sprint Corp., the wirless company that has been the go-to provider for the cable industry for decades, has made a proposal to Charter Communications, according to the Wall Street Journal, that would create a separate publicly traded entity controlled by the wireless provider's parent company, Japanese mobile giant SoftBank.

According to theJournal, no formal offer has been made yet and there is no guarantee that Charter would accept the deal. But the proposal comes just as the exclusive period of negotiations between Sprint, Comcast and Charter over apossible wireless partnership.The Journal had earlier reportered that Sprint, Comcast and Charter were talking about forming a possible Mobile Virtual Network Operator partnership, similar to one the two cable companies have with the country's largest wireless service provider, Verizon. The paper said while an MVNO could still happen, it has taken a back seat to the merger talks.

Charter officials declined comment.

Go to multichannel.com for the full story.