Sprint is considering a counter-bid for wireless service provider MetroPCS, which has agreed to merge with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA, a source told Reuters earlier this week. Softbank, founded and led by Masayoshi Son - Japan's second-richest man, according to Forbes - was the first of Japan's leading mobile carriers to offer Apple Inc's iPhone in Japan. The company, which has grown from a packaged software distributor 30 years ago into a broad telecoms group worth more than $40 billion, took over Vodafone Japan in 2006.