IPhone revenue grew 9% year on year to a record $71.6 billion, CEO Tim Cook told a call on fiscal Q1 ended Dec. 25. Total revenue jumped 11% to $123.9 billion. Services grew 24% to $19.5 billion on strength in Apple Music, Apple TV+, advertising and payments; the App Store had a record December quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. Paid subscriptions totaled 785 million, with 165 million added, he said Thursday. The stock closed 7% higher Friday at $170.33.

The Wireline Bureau approved a limited, temporary waiver of service authorization requirements in FCC numbering rules sought by UScellular. The carrier said the waiver is needed to provide mobile data services to some 50,000 fleet devices through Aeris, an IoT mobile virtual network operator. UScellular “seeks to maintain service to this limited number of IoT devices for a limited time by becoming the temporary assignee of the numbers that Aeris currently uses to provide service,” said an order in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The carrier “has committed to return the numbering resources” to the North American numbering plan administrator “no later than 24 months after any waiver is granted, and we condition our grant on US Cellular’s compliance with this commitment (and, as possible, returning individual blocks of numbers prior to such date as they are no longer in service),” the bureau said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans a virtual workshop March 8-9 on the development of standards and performance metrics for on-road autonomous vehicles, said Thursday's Federal Register. The event starts at 9 a.m. EST. "On-road autonomous vehicles are projected to influence key aspects of everyday life including transportation, goods delivery, manufacturing, public safety, and security," said the notice. "However, autonomous vehicles can pose a risk in the event of unexpected system performance."

Wireless issues top APCO's 2022 regulatory priorities, the group posted Thursday. Improving location accuracy for wireless calls to 911 leads the list, followed by protecting public safety use of the 6 GHz band and revising rules for 4.9 GHz, said Chief Counsel Jeff Cohen. Securing “major federal funding to implement Next Generation 9-1-1 nationwide” topped legislative priorities.

The FCC is seeking comment on rules for how often narrowband white spaces devices must check a database to operate, as expected (see 2201260016). The order, approved before Thursday’s commissioners' meeting, requires other devices operating in the TV bands to check the database at least once hourly. The main changes to the draft item come in a new Further NPRM exploring an issue on which Microsoft and NAB took opposing sides (see 2201210069). “Microsoft argues that requiring narrowband fixed white space devices used for IoT applications to comply with an hourly database recheck would negatively impact battery life, limit potential form factors, and increase the costs of those devices,” the FNPRM said. It asked how often check-ins should be required and the impact on licensed wireless mics that use the spectrum. “Should we require mobile devices to comply with the same hourly re-check interval as fixed devices operating in the TV bands, or would a different interval be more appropriate?” the FNPRM asked: “If so, what is the appropriate re-check interval?” Comment deadlines will follow in a Federal Register notice. No commissioners commented. The item rejected NAB’s reconsideration petition of 2018 approval of Nominet UK as a white space database administrator.

The Environmental Health Trust said the FCC should be required to pay the group’s legal fees after last year’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision remanding a 2019 RF safety action for further work (see 2108130073). “The FCC does not deny the … Petitioners are eligible to recover fees or are prevailing parties,” EHT said in a Tuesday brief in docket 20-1025: “Rather, it maintains that fees should not be awarded because the FCC’s position was substantially justified in issuing the challenged Order.” An "award of fees is not authorized in this case because the government’s position was ‘substantially justified,’” the FCC said: “Even if a fee award were available, the amounts claimed by petitioners (totaling about $358,000) are excessive and should be reduced" at least 50%.

An NPRM seeking comment on whether to adopt four new or updated standards for equipment authorization and the certification of the telecommunication certification bodies that review new RF devices had few changes while it was before FCC commissioners, based on a side-by-side comparison with the draft. The changes were mostly cosmetic. For example, open field sites became open area test sites in the final version. The final updates a summary of standard C63.25.1:2018 to say it “Consolidates qualification and validation procedures for radiated test sites intended for use over various frequency ranges.” None of the commissioners had statements. Comment deadlines in docket 21-363 will be set by a Federal Register notice. Commissioners OK'd two wireless items before Thursday's meeting (see 2201260016).

5G is "the fastest-scaling mobile technology we have seen" in Ericsson's history, "and deployments around the world have truly accelerated this past year," said CEO Borje Ekholm on a Q4 earnings call Tuesday. Ericsson has 109 live 5G networks globally, plus 170 agreements or contracts with customers on 5G networks yet to be deployed, he said. The strong 5G momentum continues in North America, “where we saw very good development” in the fourth quarter, said Ekholm. Revenue in the region increased 17% year over year to 22.3 billion Swedish kronor ($2.4 billion), “driven by strong demand for 5G,” he said. “It's worth remembering” that during 2021, Ericsson signed new 5G contracts with all tier 1 operators in the U.S., “representing the biggest contracts in our company's history,” he said. “We think we're still relatively early in the 5G rollouts if you look on the globe,” said Ekholm. The characteristics of 5G are “so different from any other mobile technology that, in reality, was only consumer-centric,” he said. “With 5G, we're opening up one completely new field or new segment, being enterprises. So I think we're underestimating the growth potential in 5G."

The Rural Wireless Association asked the FCC to reject Mediacom arguments that the FCC can't make changes to its rip-and-replace program and to rescind a decision not to fully fund eligible telecom carriers. RWA asked for the change in September. “The Commission modified its rules exactly as directed by Congress, and RWA provides no rationale under which the Commission would be free to ignore that direction,” Mediacom said. “Mediacom argued that the Commission had ‘no discretion to deviate from the prioritization scheme established by Congress and was required to revise its prior plan to prioritize ETCs,’” RWA replied, posted Tuesday in docket 18-89: “This statement is inaccurate.” NCTA supported RWA, saying Congress gave the FCC freedom to retain funding for ETCs when it OK’d the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act as part of an omnibus appropriations bill (see 2012210055). “The well-reasoned basis for prioritizing ETCs to ensure they receive full reimbursement for the cost of removing and replacing covered equipment and services has not changed,” NCTA said. PTA-FLA and Flat Wireless jointly supported the Mediacom arguments: “To set the background for this issue, we must observe that the funding currently available for this program has always been finite, leaving the distinct possibility, if not the certainty, that some rip and replace costs incurred by eligible carriers will go unreimbursed.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau tied up a loose end Monday, approving the 2016 docket 13-59 request by Cornerstone SMR and Comtran Associates to withdraw a petition seeking reconsideration of the 2015 order granting PTC-220 a waiver so it could provide positive train control (see 1503130071). PTC-220 represents the nation’s seven Class I freight railroads and required a waiver of coordination requirements and power and antenna height limits for the 220-222 MHz band. The bureau's decision “does not make clear what technical criteria will guide a PTC-220 operator in the deployment of mobile units and what notification requirements are necessary to assure that mobile units do not produce spurious or out-of-band or adjacent channel interference to non-PTC-220 Operations,” Cornerstone and Comtran said in a 2015 petition.