Ownership

If you're a Sprint customer and have been frustrated by network performance, you may want to cheer on the deal with T-Mobile. If you're a T-Mobile customer, it doesn't represent much of an upgrade. For both groups, this tie-up—which still has to be approved by regulators—carries the risk of higher prices and fewer deals. For simple speed, though, the merger offers a lot of potential upside for Sprint users. Consider the results found by four nationwide tests of the big four carriers—two relying on crowdsourced data, two based on scheduled drive testing.

In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. Prince founded the private security firm Blackwater, which was renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians.

A trick of YouTube’s algorithms has led to the blossoming of hundreds of unlicensed, independent radio stations on the site, reminiscent of an age of underground broadcasts in the previous century. Many of the channels blink in and out of existence within a week, but their presence has become a compelling part of the site’s musical ecosystem. 

T-Mobile’s John Legere and Sprint’s Marcelo Claure went to the Federal Communications Commission to begin laying the groundwork for their proposed $26.5 billion merger. They met with FCC Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel and laid out much the same case that the companies have presented in public. 

T-Mobile executives for years have downplayed the opportunity for fixed wireless technology to replace wired internet connections. But with the proposed deal to swallow Sprint, T-Mobile executives said that the merger would position the newly-combined company to offer internet services to homes, offices and other locations—a move that would put the company into direct competition with the likes of Comcast, Charter, Verizon and other wired internet service providers.

[Commentary] The proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile once again focuses the nation’s attention on next generation 5G wireless service. Burdened with the fact that the current vibrant competition among four wireless companies has benefited consumers greatly (decreasing prices by 13 percent in the last year alone), the companies assert that their merger will accelerate the deployment of 5G. The “China is winning on 5G” argument of Sprint and T-Mobile is creative, and probably  the only rationale they could concoct after the government twice before rejected their proposal to reduce nat

To address allegations of bias, Facebook is bringing in two outside advisors — one to conduct a legal audit of its impact on underrepresented communities and communities of color, and another to advise the company on potential bias against conservative voices. 

Here’s what three government agencies will weigh as they consider the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.

Mark Zuckerberg kicked off his keynote by explaining Facebook’s plans to protect the integrity of elections in the United States and abroad. He also recapped moves the company has made to boost transparency in election ads–things like requiring anyone buying a political ad produce government identification to prove they are who they are, and requiring that political ads on Facebook have a higher degree of transparency than print, radio, or TV ads. That, of course, is meant to get in front of Congress’s proposed Honest Ads Act.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that building a 5G mobile broadband network is a chief concern for the Trump administration. “I think the pitch that Sprint and T-Mobile are making is an interesting one, that their merger would propel Verizon and AT&T into more active pursuit of 5G,” Sec Ross said. “Whoever pursues it, whoever does it, we’re very much in support of 5G. We need it. We need it for defense purposes, we need it for commercial purposes,” he continued.