Broadband Roundup: Wireless Data Exploding, Will Sprint Succeed with T-Mobile, Cybersecurity Bill

WASHINGTON, June 18, 2014 – A new study by Wireless Association CTIA reported that between 2012 and 2013, mobile traffic and data increased by 120 percent. That’s 383 times the data usage from 2008. The result was $331 billion worth of investments into wireless networks last year, according to the association.

On the communications merger front, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said Tuesday that he expects Sprint’s attempt to acquire T-Mobile to suffer the same doomed fate of AT&T’s attempt to acquire the wireless carrier, The National Journal reported.

Regulators won’t budge, he said, because in their minds, a colossal merger would reduce competition in the wireless industry from four major carriers to three.

“There were not other major issues. That was the issue, and that’s what they came after,” he said during an interview with David Rubenstein, CEO of the Carlyle Group, during an event hosted by the Business Roundtable, according to National Journal. “As you think about Sprint and T-Mobile combining, I struggle to see how that is not four going to three.”

Softbank Corp CEO Masayoshi Son, on the other hand, expressed more optimism about Sprint’s proposed merger, according to Reuters. Softbank owns majority share in Sprint.

“We can make it more effective by getting bigger scale,” he said at Tuesday’s interview, conducted jointly with former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who is attending SoftBank-sponsored events in Tokyo. “Us becoming a more credible competitor in scale is something good for American consumers and citizens.”

Additionally, a Senate press release said that Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Fernstein has drafted a bill that allows companies to more easily share information about cyberattacks.

A counterpart bill to a similar House bill, the measure offers “liability protection to companies that participate  in the program.”