Don't expect T-Mobile to pick up the Huawei Mate 10 Pro

It now appears that the Huawei Mate 10 Pro will not be offered by AT&T or Verizon. The Wall Street Journal today suggested that the reversal might have taken place because of a 2012 Congressional report that claimed Huawei's telecom equipment was used to spy on corporations and governments. The allegations in the report were denied by the manufacturer despite comments made by former CIA chief Michael Hayden. The latter claims to have seen hard evidence that Huawei has spied on behalf of China, its home country. AT&T and Verizon have not made any comments about Huawei at all.

Huawei has a goal, as many of you know, which is to top Samsung and Apple and become the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. While some analytical firms did have the company in second place ahead of Apple for the third quarter of 2017, the company's task is going to be hard to accomplish without a U.S. carrier spending money to promote its phones. It surely looked as though AT&T, and possibly Verizon, would be offering the Huawei Mate 10 Pro this year. Now that this is not happening, you might think that it is the perfect opportunity for T-Mobile to step in and show up the duopoly mockingly referred to as Dumb and Dumber by the carrier's president and CEO John Legere.

But as it turns out, T-Mobile itself has had an issue with Huawei, one that resulted in a $4.8 million court ruling in T-Mobile's favor. The jury ruled that Huawei stole T-Mobile’s trade secrets when its employees took pictures of a T-Mobile robot called "Tappy" that tested smartphones. Huawei might have considered that a victory considering that T-Mobile was seeking $500 million. But the jury said that Huawei's actions were not "willful and malicious." T-Mobile was asking for lost profits and revenue that it could have had by licensing Tappy. The robot, designed in 2007, would test smartphones by tapping them in the same manner as a human would. (Thanks to Evan Blass for turning us on to this story).

While this would seem like a great opportunity for T-Mobile to come in and offer a handset that many U.S. consumers are interested in, it seems that there could be political backlash that no U.S. carrier wants to be involved in. After all, what company wants to end up the subject of a tweet from President Donald Trump? In addition, it does appear that T-Mobile, victimized itself by Huawei, has an even more valid reason to blackball Huawei. You can see Tappy in action by clicking the video at the top of the screen.

source: T-Mobile, Fierce Wireless