Verizon said Tuesday its narrowband IoT network is now available nationwide, covering more than 92 percent of the U.S. population. “There is a whole universe of smart solutions needing scalable and affordable connections,” said Jeffrey Dietel, senior vice president-business marketing and products. The standard price plan offers 50 KB of data with a $1 monthly access fee per device, Verizon said.

A lawyer laid out the Wireless ISP Association's stance on the 2.5 GHz educational broadband service band, in a meeting with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. For existing EBS licensees, the FCC should “eliminate leasing, ownership and educational requirements, and should rationalize existing Geographic Service Areas by extending them to the county border,” said Stephen Coran of Lerner Senter. “With respect to unassigned EBS spectrum,” WISPA’s preference is for “an open eligibility auction designed with appropriate safeguards to ensure that one entity could not acquire all available spectrum in a geographic market,” Coran said, per a Tuesday filing in docket 18-120. Pai is expected to propose revised 2.5 GHz rules for a vote at the June 6 commissioners’ meeting (see 1905130054).

General Counsel David Miller and others from T-Mobile and Sprint met FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry on their proposed deal. Also attending were Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, and members of the FCC's T-Mobile/Sprint transaction team, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-197. The companies “reviewed in detail the New T-Mobile 5G network build plan, as described in their network model and various filings previously submitted in this docket,” the companies said: “The representatives discussed the planned low-band and mid-band 5G network coverage, the pace and depth of such deployment, and the resulting speeds likely to be experienced by consumers using 5G devices. The representatives also discussed New T-Mobile’s incentives to complete the 5G network build as proposed.”

ClearCaptions offers an application using geolocation technology available within an iPhone to “accurately identify a user’s geographic location for the purpose of quickly routing an emergency call,” becoming the first IP captioned telephone service to do so, it told the FCC Monday in a notice of substantive change in docket 03-123. The app includes Bluetooth connectivity and “improved location tracking for 911 support,” it said.

AT&T reached a tentative four-year agreement with an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers System Council on a mobility labor contract, the carrier said Sunday. The existing contract expires Aug. 24. The pact, covering about 1,500 employees in Illinois, Idaho and Montana call centers, will be submitted to union membership for ratification in “coming days,” AT&T said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau proposes changing the industrial/business pool frequencies on which Vantage Geophysical can operate. The license in question “authorizes itinerant operations throughout the continental United States, but the authorized frequencies … are not designated for itinerant use and the underlying application did not undergo frequency coordination,” the bureau said: “It appears that the application was granted in error.” Vantage frequencies 451.125, 451.675, 452.675, 456.175, 456.725, 462.125 and 463.725 MHz would be replaced by 451.800, 451.8125, 456.800, 456.8125, 464.500, 464.550 and 469.500 MHz, under the order, posted Monday. The company has until June 12 to protest.

Oil companies led by Chevron asked the FCC to exclude the Gulf of Mexico from any expanded unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band. “The 6 GHz backhaul network is essential for the safety of oil and gas operations and for new government continuous monitoring regulation," said a filing in docket 18-295."Offshore energy production operations have become safer and more secure over the last decade, in part through greatly improved communications between oil production platforms and on-shore management, monitoring activities and public safety entities." The FCC is examining Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use of the band (see 1903190050).

Huawei asked the FCC to "take notice of recent remarks by Chinese officials underscoring that Chinese laws do not require private companies to engage in cyberespionage, and that the Chinese government does not control private companies headquartered within its borders." The smartphone OEM "has never 'spied' on behalf of the Chinese government -- or any other," CEO Ren Zhengfei says it wouldn't if the government asked, and China has never made such a request, it wrote the agency. Friday's posting in docket 18-89 included a report by Hanhua Zhou, research scientist at the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Thursday, FCC members voted to deny China Mobile OK to sell services in the U.S., and may revoke previous permission given China Unicom and China Telecom (see 1905090039). The commission didn't comment Friday on Huawei.

NTIA seeks comment on proposed information collection related to closing out the State and Local Implementation Grant Program, says a notice for Monday's Federal Register. The SLIGP was designed to help states and territories prepare for FirstNet. “SLIGP 2.0 recipients’ periods of performance are currently scheduled to end in early 2020,” NTIA said. “Following the award end date, recipients will be required to complete grant closeout activities within 90 days.” A form “will ask recipients to aggregate their cumulative progress toward program priority areas identified in their quarterly performance progress reports,” it said. “Recipients will also be asked to report on their cumulative expenditures.” The FR notice “allows NTIA to begin the process to obtain the approval for the standard three years,” it said. The agency estimated average time per response as 25 hours. It asked whether the proposed information collection is necessary; the accuracy of the estimated burden; ways to enhance quality, utility and clarity of information; and ways to minimize burden.

Make spectrum above 95 GHz available for licensed use, 5G Americas asked the FCC. The group is “disappointed” the first spectrum horizons order created only “frameworks for Part 5 experimental licensing and Part 15 unlicensed use, but is heartened by the Commission’s promise to consider developing rules for segments of the range above 95 GHz for exclusive licensing in the future,” 5G Americas said. “Spectrum above 95 GHz will play an important role in enabling innovators to develop new technologies. 5G Americas accordingly supports the Commission proposing rules for licensed access to band segments as soon as possible.” Commissioners approved the order 5-0 in March (see 1903150054). Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said then he would have preferred an order providing some licensed use of the very high-band spectrum. The letter was posted Tuesday in docket 18-21.