It's an understatement to say that Sprint is in a period of transition — both Softbank and Dish are trying to buy the nation's third-largest wireless carrier. At the same time, Sprint and Dish are both trying to purchase Clearwire, and Sprint has just made a strong play for that spectrum. The carrier has just submitted a new, increased offer for Clearwire — the carrier is now offering $3.40 per share of the company that Sprint doesn't already own. That's up from the $2.97 Sprint initially offered and would value Clearwire as a whole at $10.7 billion — and it's a bit better than the $3.30 per share that Dish offered in its acquisition bid.

Sprint says that this is its "best and final offer," so there's not much to do but wait for Clearwire's board to make a determination. Regardless of what happens, though, it's clear that Sprint will look like a much different company in the coming months, but there's no way to say exactly how. Will Dish manage to purchase both Sprint and Clearwire, setting itself up to diversify beyond the satellite TV service it is known for, or will Sprint pick up the half of Clearwire it doesn't already own and then be sold off to Softbank? We'll be watching to see how all this drama plays out.