MWC: Mobile World Cancelled - Sprint T-Mobile Merger Approved, Mobile World Congress Cancelled!

**Patrick Norton** (0:00)
Coming up for This Week in Computer Hardware, the Sprint T-Mobile merger gets judges approval, Samsung's new S20s and the Galaxy Z Flip. Coronavirus killed Mobile World Congress, ARM's latest Edge AI processors, and so much more, all coming up next on Twitch. This Week in Computer Hardware is brought to you from LastPass Studios. Using the same password everywhere is a security nightmare. It's just waiting to happen. LastPass easily creates unique passwords for every site. Visit lastpass.com/twit.
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This is Twitch, This Week in Computer Hardware, episode 553, recorded on February 13th, 2020 MWC Mobile World canceled. This episode of This Week in Computer Hardware is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier connects all your business software and handles the work for you, so you can focus on what matters most. Right now, through the end of the month, go to zapier.com/twitch to get your free 14 day trial. Welcome to Twitch, This Week in Computer Hardware, Twitch Weekly Show, that aims to bring you all the hardware news. And this week, we have a lot of mobile news, from the shocking to the delightful, to the just plain sad. Joining me as always, Sebastian Peak, PC Per Editor in Chief, man about Ann Arbor, Michigan. How are you, sir?

**Sebastian Peak** (1:26)
I'm good. I'm puzzling over the Ann Arbor thing, but you know what? You got it right between the two coasts of this island we call Michigan, which I believe is an island. Last time I checked, it's actually a peninsula.

**Patrick Norton** (1:39)
Fortunately, you benchmark better than you geography. You're benchmarking is better than your geography.

**Sebastian Peak** (1:47)
Not my strong suit, Patrick, but I know where I am, I think. Southwest Michigan, somewhere in there.

**Patrick Norton** (1:57)
Oh, goodness, we hope.
Something I didn't really, I wasn't prepared for this week, but happened whether I liked it or not, is the decision on the T-Mobile Sprint merger, that court case has been floating around in the background for approximately forever, it seems like. Fox or Recode, I think they did a fine job of summing it up. The T-Mobile plus Sprint deal is good for you if you like paying more for your wireless plan. In no small part because the judge in the case, a Clinton appointee, has decided that, I guess Dish is going to create a new fourth wireless network and that will restore a fourth competitor to what will now be the three mobile phone providers in the United States, thus restoring some level of competition. There's been a lot of interesting writing about this all over the place. One of the most fascinating reads was in the New York Post, which was discussing the role of Meoshi San and Softbank and his imperial nature and how that managed to A, really screw up his relationship with the FCC in the early days and B, the decision to not do a good job breaking it out into communities because they were building towers and decided they were going to put boxes on top of municipal buildings, which were great in Japan. But Meoshi San doesn't have the sway in the United States. He does in Japan and essentially how they were being outspent by a factor of five or six or seven, probably somewhere between three. They were under spending compared to the other networks somewhere in the neighborhood of five to $6 billion a year or three to $6 billion a year, depending on whose estimates you're looking at. But it's been interesting to watch all this come up because the judge essentially decided that the decision was his to make and that he was going to make it and he's made it. There's this incredibly snarky article in The Verge, quote, the court let T-Mobile buy Sprint because Sprint completely sucks. That's Nile Patel, who's kind of the commander in chief over at The Verge, who also happens to be a lawyer.
Well, he put it this way, Judge Victor Marrero, Judge Victor Marrero of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, basically decided that the various data and experts put forward by the 10 state attorneys general who sued to stop the merger weren't worth taking seriously and that he would decide for himself whether T-Mobile and Dish seemed like cool companies worth trusting.
And he basically decided that T-Mobile CEO is super cool and trustworthy, in the word of Nile Patel. Stark aside, Nile did a really good breakdown and translation of the judge's decision. It is a great read. It is probably an infuriating read for a lot of our listeners, simply because it's just, yeah, you know, it's...