Dish has made the unsolicited bid of $3.30 a share for the outstanding shares in Clearwire on Tuesday evening. In December, Sprint made a bid of $2.97 to get control of the 49 percent of the company that it doesn't already own.

The Dish bid comes with a number of conditions:

• Dish must get 25 percent or more or the outstanding shares as part of the transaction

• Dish gets to nominate board members

• Dish will pay $2.2 billion for about 24 percent of Clearwire's spectrum in the U.S.

• Clearwire would work with Dish to build and run a commercial network

• Dish wants Clearwire to terminate its financing agreement with Sprint

Clearwire said in a statement that a special committee on its board "has determined that its fiduciary duties require it to engage with Dish" to discuss the offer, but that it hasn't so far changed its recommendation of the current Sprint transaction.

The statement reveals that Dish had already approached Clearwire with a spectrum offer before the Sprint bid.

Clearwire has revoked its initial draw on the Sprint financing because of the decision to examine the Dish bid, and so has not received the first $80 million under the agreement.

Clearwire also says that it has received a letter from its 4G partner, Sprint, describing the Dish proposal as "illusory" and "inferior" to the Sprint bid. Sprint also stated that the Sprint agreement would prohibit Clearwire from entering into agreements for much of the Dish proposal.

Clearwire said it has given no timetable for the resolution of the matter of the dueling bids and will not comment further about the proposed deals.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile