Amy Schatz

[Commentary] Once again, T-Mobile is boasting about how its wireless growth outpaced the rest of the industry combined.

And rarely does a week go by without CEO John Legere touting all of the many ways that his un-carrier is shaking things up. But the question now is whether those market share gains -- and all that bluster -- will actually make it harder for T-Mobile and Sprint to complete a merger that many say the companies need to become a long-term competitor to Verizon and AT&T.

“The answer is 100 percent yes,” said wireless industry analyst Chetan Sharma. “It would have been easier to push through a deal if T-Mobile was weaker than it is today. In an ironic twist of fate, the recent success of T-Mobile has worked against them.”

Silicon Valley companies may not like official Washington sometimes, but they’re increasingly happy to throw it a party. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and a handful of other tech companies are hosting bashes as Washington politicians and journalists party during White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner weekend, an annual schmooze- and selfie-fest that started with a dinner and has grown into a four-day party marathon.

Nine parties are planned, including an event at the Institute for Peace co-sponsored by Google and Netflix which will include actors from Netflix’s “House of Cards.” Across town, Microsoft and AOL are helping sponsor a “New Media Party” that will feature craft cocktails, “spheres over the dance floor enabling guests to download music” and miniature talking robots.

For firms like Google and Facebook, the parties represent a chance to gin up some goodwill among lawmakers, administration officials and journalists. Other tech companies, such as BuzzFeed and Yahoo, are using the weekend to draw attention to their burgeoning new media operations.

[Commentary] Comcast and Time Warner Cable? Doable, but rough. Sprint and T-Mobile? Really rough. But if AT&T wants to buy DirecTV, it has decent odds of getting it done.

At least from the regulators’ perspective. So let’s say regulators say the deal is OK with them. What does it do for AT&T? That one is harder to parse. It’s hard to argue, as Comcast and Time Warner Cable can, that the two companies can find operational efficiencies -- since maintaining telecommunications/broadband pipes and operating satellite TV networks are two distinct things.

The most obvious answer is that combining the two companies will give them more power when it comes to negotiating licensing deals with TV programmers. But that’s only relevant if AT&T decides or is allowed to keep its pay TV subscribers. And even then, the combined company may not be able to do much more than it was doing as two separate companies. Analyst Craig Moffett estimates that AT&T might eventually end up saving $400 million a year in programming costs.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a much-leaked proposal to restrict how many licenses the country’s two largest wireless companies can win in an auction of TV airwaves in 2015.

In a blog post, he said regulators need to ensure that the nation’s largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, don’t scoop up all of the TV airwaves. The licenses to be auctioned off are coveted by wireless companies because they allow signals to penetrate buildings and travel long distances, which makes them cheaper to use. The rules are designed to prevent “one or two bidders” from sweeping the auction, Chairman Wheeler wrote. They should make it easier for Sprint, T-Mobile and other smaller carriers to scoop up prime airwaves licenses for their LTE networks.

A senior FCC official told reporters they’re trying to do a balancing act between wanting to raise money while ensuring that smaller carriers have a chance to win licenses. This is a reasonable approach, the official said. It’s not clear if the wireless carriers will agree.

When the rules were leaked, AT&T complained about the set-aside for smaller companies and threatened to boycott the auction. Now, AT&T has backed down from the threat, saying, “our desire to participate in this auction and our hope for a successful auction is unchanged,” in a letter disclosing a meeting AT&T officials had with Chairman Wheeler’s aides.

Nearly two years after Google, Facebook and other Internet companies launched their own DC lobbying group, the Internet Association is expanding to open a Sacramento-based office.

While the trade group hasn’t been around very long, it has already become a growing presence on Capitol Hill, where Michael Beckerman and his staff of seven have made Internet companies’ and startups’ feelings known about a wide range of issues, from NSA surveillance programs and data security to privacy issues and patent troll legislation.

Although the Internet Association plans to hire more lobbyists to focus on state and local issues in the future, it’s kicking off those efforts in California because that’s where a majority of its members are based, Beckerman said.