The Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA and Telecommunications Industry Association generally support a draft order, set for a vote at the Nov. 15 FCC commissioners’ meeting, changing how industry reports availability of hearing-aid compatible handsets, including lifting Form 655 requirements. CCA and CTIA officials said they spoke with Wireless Bureau staff. “The common sense approach to replace service providers’ existing FCC Form 655 obligations with a new disclosure and certification regime will better ensure that the Commission and consumers have timely and relevant information to choose among the hundreds of HAC-rated wireless handsets available in the market today, while reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens,” filed the three groups, posted Monday in docket 17-228.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and others representing Protect America’s Wireless said the federal government should take a closer look T-Mobile buying Sprint in light of SoftBank’s ties to China and Saudi Arabia. On a Monday call with reporters, Rogers and others declined to say who was funding the push. SoftBank owns a majority of Sprint. “I do have some concern with Softbank’s connection with Huawei,” said Rogers, ex-chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “That to me should raise a red flag.” ZTE worked with SoftBank on tech research and development of new 5G radios, he said. Rogers said the U.S. should take a close look at the deal through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. “My encouragement is [CFIUS] should look at it hard, and if these companies ever wanted to move forward on anything, they would have to fundamentally make commitments, I would hope they'd be willing to make, but I'm not sure that they're willing to make at this point,” Rogers said. SoftBank agreed to some concessions on China to buy Sprint, but Rogers said it's not extensive. “You’re opening up an ecosystem that would not be part of that original agreement,” he said. Other speakers said SoftBank has deep ties to Saudi Arabia, which is troublesome after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other alleged abuses by Saudi leaders. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman “besides ordering the murder of a Washington Post columnist, is actively destabilizing the Middle East and putting Americans at risk,” said Trita Parsi, Georgetown University adjunct professor of international relations. “To provide him with the leverage of being a key stakeholder in America’s telecommunications infrastructure of the future is beyond unwise.” Sprint and T-Mobile didn’t comment. Regardless of what happens in Tuesday’s elections, “I expected the incoming Congress to ask tough questions -- tough questions about the safety and security of America’s wireless networks,” said Kyle Downey, former GOP Senate staffer. T-Mobile and Sprint representatives met with FCC staff reviewing the deal on their economic arguments, said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197.

Smartphones will continue to gain share as consumers’ preferred method for shopping online, with 48 percent of visits and 27 percent of revenue, but completed cart orders occur 20 percent less often on smartphones than on a PC due to “sub-optimal checkout experiences,” Abobe reported Thursday. That costs retailers $9 billion in mobile sales, said the report. Shopping visits by tablets are down 30 percent in four years to 8.8 percent of e-commerce sales, it said, as larger smartphones and smaller laptops leave little room for tablets. Results are based on its analytics, cloud service and surveying more than 1,000 U.S. consumers in October.

Q3 global smartphone shipments declined for the fourth straight quarter, reports show. That “raises questions about the market's future,” said IDC. Shipments fell 6 percent to 355.2 million units: “The market will return to growth in 2019, but at this stage it is too early to tell what that growth will look like.” Market-share leader Samsung “had a challenging quarter” with shipments down 13.4 percent to 72.2 million units, said IDC Thursday. Strategy Analytics pegged the global smartphone decline at 8 percent in Q3 to 360 million handsets, saying the market is "effectively in a recession." Smartphone makers are "struggling to come to terms with heavily diminished carrier subsidies, longer replacement rates, inventory buildup in several regions, and a lack of exciting hardware design innovation,” it said.

T-Mobile told the SEC it signed “a reciprocal long-term spectrum lease with Sprint that included a total commitment of $533 million and an offsetting amount to be received from Sprint for the lease of our spectrum.” T-Mobile said last week lease payments are expected to start this quarter and the lease is a “distinct transaction from the Merger.”

PTC-220 is nearly done building a positive train control system serving major freight railroads using 220 MHz spectrum, but plans to seek extension next month, up to Dec. 31, 2020, for achieving full PTC, said a filing posted Friday in docket 08-256. “All PTC-220 members will [by year end] have installed all RF components required for their PTC systems and will also have satisfied all other statutory criteria to apply for an extension.” PTC-220 said under a certification process, railroads must complete interoperability testing with tenant carriers: It "requires tenant railroads, including commuter railroads, to install radios in their own locomotives and ensure ... proper back-office functionality.”

Forty-four carriers, equipment providers and rural broadband advocates sought a Further NPRM on changing TV white spaces rules. “Our deployments are giving us real-world experience in how a set of pragmatic changes to FCC rules would allow us to reach even more Americans, without causing harmful interference to incumbent licensees,” said a letter to commissioners posted Friday in docket 16-56. The group said the changes it's seeking are consistent with arguments by Microsoft. Axiom, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, Nominet, Rise Broadband, Rural Wireless Association, Windstream and the others seek “higher power for fixed devices in rural areas where we can operate without causing harmful interference to broadcasters,” freedom to place antennas at taller heights “governed by a new protection mechanism,” narrowband IoT supporting such applications as precision agriculture and environmental sensing and “geofenced operation on moving vehicles.”

The FCC said more than 8 million speed tests were submitted during the Mobility Fund II challenge process. Of the 106 entities with access to the MF-II Challenge Process Portal, “38 are mobile service providers required to file Form 477 data; 19 are state government entities; 27 are local government entities; 16 are Tribal government entities; and six are other entities that have filed petitions requesting, and have each been granted, a waiver to participate,” said Friday's report in docket 10-90. It was by the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and Wireline and Wireless bureaus. Some say FCC broadband maps are inaccurate (see 1811010031).

Chief Financial Officer Matthew Ellis said Verizon is benefiting from the FCC’s September wireless infrastructure order (see 1809260029). Ellis appeared to downplay the significance in a recent financial call (see 1811010046). He emailed that the order is important. "The FCC's order addressing local roadblocks to small cell deployment was hugely important in advancing 5G deployment,” Ellis said. “Gaining permission to deploy needed small cells quickly and on reasonable terms has been one of the most significant challenges we face. As we continue to deploy thousands of small cells and millions of miles of fiber, we appreciate the FCC’s adoption of common sense rules, consistent with legislation in more than 20 states, that reduce the time and cost of small cell deployments.” The order is also important in controlling costs, he said. "Capital budgets are finite, after all, so the more we have to spend to deploy infrastructure in one locality means that we have less money to spend elsewhere,” he said. “The FCC’s actions help ensure that more Americans gain access more quickly to 5G services."

Key Bridge filed supplemental information at the FCC on its proposal to be environmental sensing capability administrator in the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band. “Key Bridge intends to upgrade the spectrum sensors used in our ESC from time to time,” said a filing in docket 15-319. “We are committed to test and verify operational conformance of each component prior to deployment. To this end we have developed a completely automated ESC sensor testing capability that builds upon signal generation scripts and guidance helpfully provided to all prospective ESC administrators by the NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences.”