October 2017

In 2014, Sprint tried to buy T-Mobile in a deal that ultimately fell apart under scrutiny by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. Regulators at the time concluded that having four major competitors in the cellular space, not three, would do the most to preserve competition and help consumers. Analysts say that a new agreement between the two companies would likely hand the reins to T-Mobile, which overtook Sprint in 2015 as the nation's third-biggest carrier. Given that T-Mobile was behind the push for many of the industry changes we've seen in recent years, it's possible that T-Mobile could do a lot with Sprint if it led the company. But many of the underlying issues — such as what happens to competition in a world of three national providers — remain.

As recently as last week, staff members at the Justice Department were said to be skeptical of a Sprint/T-Mobile deal. One argument you can expect to hear, analysts say, is that building out the next generation of wireless data — known as "5G” — will be fairly expensive and that it would be cheaper for everyone involved if T-Mobile and Sprint could join forces and build a single 5G network rather than build two of them separately. Another argument you might hear is that Sprint, whose business is weakening, simply can't survive alone and that by teaming up with T-Mobile, the combined company could more effectively compete with AT&T and Verizon.

A top federal government cybersecurity watchdog issued an advisory on Oct 16, warning users to update their devices to protect against a newly discovered vulnerability that affects nearly every modern, protected Wi-Fi network. The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team's announcement comes after a security expert at the University of Leuven in Belgium published findings that showed that a widely used encryption system for wireless networks could give attackers an opening to steal sensitive information such as e-mails, chat histories and credit card numbers.

The exploit would allow hackers to eavesdrop on Internet traffic between computers and wireless access points. The findings are significant because of the wide range of devices that could be affected. "The attack works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks,” Mathy Vanhoef said on a website he created to share his research. “Depending on the network configuration, it is also possible to inject and manipulate data. For example, an attacker might be able to inject ransomware or other malware into websites.”

Since his election as president, Donald Trump has tweeted to or about Fox News nearly 130 times. The most recent example was early Oct 16, when Trump shared a comment from economist Art Laffer that had just been made on a Fox network. How do we know that was the origin of the quote? President Trump made sure to tag Fox News in the tweets. He might also have tagged Fox Business, the network he was watching.

Which is unusual: He’s usually watching “Fox and Friends” on weekday mornings, a show he’s mentioned or retweeted 79 times as president — once every three days or so. What’s critical to remember, though, is that President Trump’s interest in Fox News predates his presidency substantially. Since 2010, he’s tweeted about Fox News more than 1,200 times, most heavily in 2015 as he enjoyed the network’s coverage as he tried to woo Republican voters — and most often between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., when “Fox and Friends” is on.