SoftBank Deal Expected as Sprint Schedules Early Morning Webcast

After confirming last week that it was in talks with SoftBank about a strategic investment, Sprint scheduled an investor Webcast for very early Monday.

The “special Webcast” is slated for 1 am PT Monday and, sleep be damned, AllThingsD will have live coverage. (Sprint has updated its Web site, and is now pointing people to a SoftBank press conference in Japan being carried on Ustream.)

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that SoftBank and Sprint were nearly ready with a $20 billion deal that would give the Japanese company a majority stake in the No. 3 U.S. cellular carrier.

While the deal is expected, among the open questions are whether SoftBank will also grab a larger stake in Clearwire, and if it is eyeing further acquisitions, potentially including T-Mobile USA, which is itself in the process of trying to buy rival MetroPCS.