Verizon could make a bid for Sprint

Just because they can doesn't mean they will (or that they should), but Verizon has officially gotten permission from partner/major investor Vodafone to make a play for Sprint. If you recall the halcyon days of late last week, when talk of a Sprint-Nextel merger was still just that—talk—speculation was already brewing that Verizon was somehow going to get mixed up in all this. Obviously Verizon seems like a more natural merger partner for Sprint than Nextel, since both use CDMA for their wireless networks, but then again, both Cingular and AT&T Wireless use GSM and that merger hasn't exactly been a cakewalk. Anyway, it could be a few weeks, if ever, before Verizon announces a bid, but we're sure we'll hear them when they do.