Ars Technica

Randall Stephenson, AT&T's CEO, predicted that T-Mobile USA and Sprint will have a difficult time getting their merger approved because the deal would eliminate a major competitor. "I think [T-Mobile and Sprint] have a tough hill to climb, I mean, it's a classic horizontal merger where you're taking a competitor out of the marketplace," Stephenson said.

AT&T has given up its years-long quest to cripple the Federal Trade Commission's authority to regulate broadband providers. Just weeks ago, AT&T said it intended to appeal its loss in the case to the US Supreme Court before a deadline of May 29. But May 31, AT&T informed court officials that it has decided not to file a petition to the Supreme Court and did not ask for a deadline extension.

Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure tweeted that Sprint will build "one of the best networks in the world" even if it isn't allowed to merge with rival T-Mobile USA. "Merger or no merger, Sprint presses ahead with KC network buildout. Kansas City will have one of the best networks in the world," Claure tweeted. So why does Sprint need to merge with T-Mobile?

Pirate TV boxes that falsely display the Federal Communications Commission logo should be removed from Amazon and eBay, said FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly.  Commissioner O'Rielly wrote a letter to the Amazon and eBay CEOs asking them to crack down on set-top boxes that violate FCC rules. Amazon quickly responded, saying that it already takes steps to prevent sale of these products but that it is willing to step up enforcement if any such devices are still for sale on Amazon.

Hackers possibly working for an advanced nation have infected more than 500,000 home and small-office routers around the world with malware that can be used to collect communications, launch attacks on others, and permanently destroy the devices with a single command, researchers at Cisco warned. VPNFilter—as the modular, multi-stage malware has been dubbed—works on consumer-grade routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear, TP-Link, and on network-attached storage devices from QNAP, Cisco researchers said. It’s one of the few pieces of Internet-of-things malware that can survive a reboot.