Dish Network Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. are discussing a possible tie-up that may involve Internet of Things devices or wireless services, according to a report published Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal claims that Dish Chief Executive Charlie Ergen and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (pictured), described as “eccentric billionaires with geek tendencies and shared interest in space and robotics,” have discussed a deal between their two companies. It could include Amazon financing a wireless network Dish is building to focus on IoT devices, or alternately a service that could offer and option for Prime members to access a phone plan.

A potential mobile service would not be that revolutionary and could potentially see Prime members paying an additional sum for a discounted service that might be provided from a Dish and Amazon branded phone, although presumably given its failures in the past not a phone designed by Amazon itself.

The IoT proposal though is far more interesting with a potential link-up seeing Dish’s wireless spectrum being used to communicate with Amazon devices such as its Echo range of smart speakers or even Amazon Dash buttons, allowing Amazon to improve the technology of the devices “by putting the intelligence throughout the nodes of a wireless network.”

A potential deal may be some time away. The report noted that Amazon “is taking a walk vs. a run approach with Dish,” but the two companies have history when it comes do doing deals with the two previously agreeing on Alexa access and streaming-TV apps on Amazon Fire devices.

Dish, which is best known for its satellite TV service, will also be looking for a partner for the wireless spectrum it acquired for a whopping $6.2 billion in April. That could make Amazon and Bezos, the latter in particular with an ambition to conquer the world, potentially an ideal partner.

Photo: Yolo0906/Wikimedia Commons