T-Mobile and Sprint's mega-deal might actually happen this time (The 3:59, Ep. 582)

[MUSIC] Welcome to the 3:59. I'm Roger Cheng. I'm Ben Fox Rubin. I'm Dara Singh. The T-Mobile Sprint soap opera continues. It really kinda boggles the mind at this point cuz it seemed like last week, T-Mobile and Sprint had a done deal with Dish. But reports have said that The last minute Dish co-founder, Charlie Ergen, tried to change the terms of the deal- No surprise there. Asking for more. No surprising, Charlie Ergen has been known to be a maverick and that's probably underselling it. And so now there are break down talks, there was an additional report that Google of all companies, Google went off a bit, were stepping in to help broker a deal, maybe to help out Dish. Google says today, told us, actually, that that's flat out wrong, flat out denied being part of the deal. So [UNKNOWN] in this weird situation, this is like the NBA free agency of the tech world. I know, I was watching this and the free agency market. I don't know what one's crazier. [LAUGH] What do you think [UNKNOWN] is it done? Hold on, I wanted to ask you that question. All right. Because this is such like a [UNKNOWN] and [UNKNOWN] situation for years. For years, yes. And even before then, correct me if I'm wrong here, AT&T try to buy T-Mobile well before then. So Is like, are your expectations that this is actually gonna get consummated this time? Or are they gonna walk away again?>> I still think this will get done somehow I think, Charlie Ergen with his last minute negotiating tactic This is kind of standard Charlie Ergen he's kind of a wild card when it comes to these types of deals So most likely will get by the table I don't know what goes on with Google. I'm assuming Google's app, that's what they say. It's an interesting point, I think part of it is that the SEC, the government basically wants more than three players, right? They don't want [UNKNOWN], like To remove that fourth competitive player, which is where Dish comes in. Dhara, you kinda crunched some numbers for the DL, right. Tell me, what does T-Mobile's spread look like from a combined perspective? Like how big are the numbers? So if we look at them individually right now, we see that T-Mobile stands at number three, in terms of subscribers. Then sprint is that number four. In terms of market cap, we're looking at 64.77 billion just for T Mobile alone. And then 28.55 billion for Sprint looking at kind of. The wireless customer accounts 8.3 million for T-Mobile and 54.5 million for sprint, which is something interesting is that in 2015 alone, it was kind of, In reverse in terms of their ranking. Right, yeah. Yeah, so Sprint was kind of the number three player, and T-Mobile was the number four. so- Yeah, bringing it back to Ben said, that was in the aftermath of when AT&T tried to by T-Mobile, that all fell apart and T-Mobile was kinda left for dead, then John Ledger came in with the [UNKNOWN] carrier and basically pushed its market share about Sprint's over time. Alright, so next up where the apps loaded the have you loaded your Android phones? Carry researcher international Computer Science Institute more than 1000 apps you more than 1300 apps. Still gather your precise location and phone identifier info Even if you deny them permission, it's yet another red flag, sometimes for the Android market You have to be aware of what kind of apps you're loading. Right, and so Google did say that they are going to address these issues in Android Q which is expected to be Released later this year by yeah we have seen this over and over again over the years where if developers do find kind of an easy access point to just be able to get permission they will do it. And [UNKNOWN] said Google waiting to. Andrew Q., right? Because that. We would like to see them addressing that. Yeah, that version with the Os doesn't come out until the phones are clear, you know, every single O, ever single device is gonna upgrade that. It was, it won't. So, you know, just to know, [UNKNOWN] fly and virus Honkong Disney land app or among the apps that actually. Take your location information, even if you say no in terms of permission. Alright, lastly Huawei is full tilt ahead on its own operating system called Hongmeng OS, it's a full speed alternative to google's android and Huawei may end up having to use this as its main OS if the US bans any of them from using google's OS. Stix, so I don't know going in on your own operating system. That's a I like competition but the problem is is that this is this is already a very mature market. Yeah, Android already has what is it 80% of the market whereas iOS has some somewhere around 20% and there really isn't a third alternative. Right? If anybody could come up with another alternative maybe it would be Huawei because they are the number two mobile player,i'm still very skeptical that they're going to be able to do something like that Yeah even the huawei founder basically said like our operating system runs he claims around 60% faster which is nice except There are no apps on it then well, how useful this mean we've seen this story before with blackberry with Windows Phone. They're all dead now. So they might not have a choice though. Yeah, if the Trump administration keeps jumping in and saying hey, you're not allowed to use these these technologies then This might be the alternative that they're gonna be forced to do. All right, for more on these stories, check us out on CNET. I'm Roger Chang. I'm Ben Fox Rubin. I'm Dhara Singh. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]