remember, it was idle chatter a few weeks or months back when at a conference lowell mcadam was askednd sort of indicated there was some industrial logic with this combination. if you talk with charter shareholders, as i have, this is something i've been talking to people about the possibility of, they say, yeah, we'd want $400. >> $400? >> yeah. 400. they're stuck at 333. by the way, let's assume it's 400. let's just assume that's the number that john mallone of liberty would want, maybe that's the number they roll into the new entity, but you're talking about dilution, jim, that is as much on epm, how do you get 12% on '18 numbers, you ready to take that as a verizon shareholder? maybe. we haven't heard any of the strategic logic for a potential deal or why verizon is thinking about this. does it have to do with 5g? would it make its entrance into that easier and cheaper? still the enormous cap x needed for 5g would still be there. but you have some things -- >> seems like a win from last -- >> it's not. but the idea of enormous deals this year in telecom is something we have to kee

this morning the "wall street journal" reporting that verizon ceo lowell mcadam had made an overture,least, a preliminary approach is the way they put it, to charter communications, involving the possible purchase of that company. now, in some ways, those of us who traffic in these kinds of potential stories not necessarily unexpected, but at the same time, when you actually go down the road of really considering whether or not this deal makes sense, it certainly has its share of road blocks. and i want to add as well that we do see this kind of reporting these days where preliminary approaches are reported on, but there are no significant talks going on at this point, at least according to people who would be aware of those talks, were they actually taking place. i can tell you it's not as though teams of advisers are meeting to try to devise a deal structure and anything of that nature. yes, a preliminary approach may have been made, and perhaps it will lead to significant talks down the road, but let me give you a few thoughts here in terms of why at least it may be that it goes no

the likes of verizon and their willingness to do something given some comments we've heard from lowell mcadamu've heard about charter. i don't know, that deal would be so dilutive on eps, on cash flow. of course enormous our own parent company, comcast. we like to do big things too. we went after time warner cable, didn't work out. we do big things. you can't rule us out either in what many believe will be a hands-off fcc. so that's why it bears watching all -- on all fronts in terms of what will come because we're at the end. by the way, the auction itself not that great. about 18.2 billion right now. there had been expectations they would raise more. broadcasters get about 10 billion, rest would go to treasury. it will go up a bit but not quite as much as anticipated going in given the last spectrum auction, aws auction which garnered $45 billion. >> dynamite reporting because people have been saying over and over again why does t-mobile go up? i say listen because they could one day be in talks. john legere doesn't like it when you say anything good about sprint, not at all, but that doesn