North America leads the world on the adoption of 4G wireless and likely will lead on 5G, not without risks, S&P Global said Wednesday. “Aggressive 5G deployment strategy increases credit risk for the U.S. telecoms at a time when M&A, mature industry conditions, and competitive pressures are already straining their balance sheets although tax reform might provide near-term relief,” the report said. “Upfront costs are likely to be considerable and the potential financial benefits are largely unproven and could take years to come to fruition.” S&P warned revenue gains from the expanding IoT, autonomous vehicles and other new applications “will take time to develop, while capital outlays in the form of spectrum license acquisitions and fiber network deployments are likely to be substantial.” S&P said most new revenue sources will take five-to-10 years to materialize. The race to 5G likely won’t have negative implications for the credit ratings of the carriers, the report said: Capital expenditures and spectrum purchases “are manageable.”

The Wireless ISP Association told the FCC members will be left out if the agency approves only county-sized priority access licenses in the citizens broadband radio service band. The proposed rules appear headed to a 3-1 vote at Tuesday's commissioners' meeting (see 1810160068). WISPA representatives met aides to all commissioners. WISPA asked the order be changed to approve at least two census-tract-sized PALs per market. “While county-based PALs may be acceptable to larger WISPA members, the majority of WISPA members are small broadband providers that would be able to participate in the auction in greater numbers and with better opportunities for success if the Commission auctioned PALs by census tracts,” the group said Wednesday in docket 17-258. “Because many counties contain urban cores where large companies could easily satisfy their build-out obligations, the rural areas surrounding those urban areas would, in many cases, be left unserved with PAL spectrum.” Auctioning PALs by county “would give an insurmountable advantage to large cellular carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Union Cellular (a regional provider serving our area),” said Lariat, a WISP. CTIA repeated support for county-sized PALs, as did the Competitive Carriers Association (see here and here).

Huawei announced availability Tuesday of its Mate 20 smartphone series Android phone with wireless charging capability, an ultra-wide-angle lens and file-sharing. It’s the first smartphone to support the 4.5G LTE Cat. 21 standard, said Huawei, enabling download speeds of up to 1.4 Gbps. With Wi-Fi, users can download 2 GB of footage in 10 seconds.

As more Americans move to cellphones from landlines, pollsters face challenges getting respondents to take their calls and therefore answer their surveys, speakers said at a Google event Tuesday. With more than half of U.S. adults using cellphones as their only phone, surveys have "shifted more to cellphone," said Kyley McGeeney of PSB, which does polling including for C-SPAN. "The problem is, cellphones are lot more expensive to dial" because one can't autodial them, said McGeeney, who also works with the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Most respondents are interviewed via cellphones, she told an event organized by the Society of Professional Journalists. "The noncontact rate" is "the problem" with those devices, she said, with response rates of about 9 percent. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act restricts calls from automatic telephone dialing systems to wireless phones.

Verizon met FCC staff on the data request made by the Wireless Bureau earlier this month as part of reviewing T-Mobile buying Sprint (see 1810040021). Verizon officials discussed “the status of our production of the responsive data we maintain and that we expect to begin producing on a rolling basis this week,” said a filing Monday in 18-197. The Shawnee, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce supported the deal. Sprint is headquartered nearby.

A report shows mobile virtual network operators "are an integral part of the wireless market," undermining a "largely discredited" FCC proposal to exclude resellers from participating in Lifeline, TracFone filed, posted Tuesday in docket 11-42. It asked that an attached report by Duke University economics professor Michelle Connolly, a former FCC chief economist, be included in Lifeline dockets. The report was underwritten by T-Mobile. TracFone called attention to a Connolly statement: "Higher income households tend to have subscriptions to both fixed broadband and wireless telephony/broadband, while younger adults, non-whites, and lower-income households are more likely to exclusively use wireless telephony/broadband to connect to the internet." TracFone said, "Many of those lower-income households are Lifeline-eligible and obtain their voice telephony and internet access service through the federal Lifeline program." It said the report illustrates why the prior FCC's minimum service standards need to be revisited "or at least applied in a flexible manner such that Lifeline consumers, rather than the Commission, determine how best to use" their service. It noted its broadband and voice "units" proposal. The National Lifeline Association and two tribes challenging FCC Lifeline tribal restrictions, including a ban on resellers receiving enhanced support, disputed commission allegations they inaccurately described comments from Smith Bagley, a facilities-based provider (here, here, in Pacer). U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judges Judith Rogers, Thomas Griffith and Raymond Randolph are to hear oral argument Oct. 25 on National Lifeline Association v. FCC, (in Pacer) No. 18-1026: Rogers is a Democratic appointee; Griffith and Randolph are Republican appointees. A panel of three Democratic appointees stayed the FCC restrictions (see 1808100027).

Sprint officials said they oppose an incentive auction in the 2.5 GHz band as proposed by the FCC, in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr. “Sprint emphasized the continued criticality of its leased 2.5 GHz spectrum and its longstanding mutually beneficial partnership with the [educational broadband service] community which has enhanced Sprint’s current LTE deployment and will enable its 5G mobile deployment in nine major markets in the first half of 2019,” said a filing Monday in docket 18-120. Sprint also stressed “the need to maintain current easing arrangements given the extensive investments commercial carriers have made in the 2.5 GHz band and the reliance EBS licensees have on the use of those networks.” The FCC in May launched an NPRM that includes questions about a possible incentive auction (see 1805100053). Few other carriers are expected to pursue the band, which is largely controlled by Sprint, despite the FCC push (see 1805040036).

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, other tribes and supporters detailed objections to a March FCC wireless infrastructure order, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 1808310038), in United Keetoowah Band v. FCC, No. 18-1129. “For decades, Tribes, carriers and other parties worked cooperatively to ensure that construction of cell phone infrastructure did not desecrate sacred or historic locations,” said the lead pleading. The Order exempted tens of thousands of expected antenna facilities” from environmental and historic reviews, the filing said. Tribes are no longer notified of small-cell deployments, the tribes said. “The FCC shortened the timeline for Tribal review, hindering Tribal ability to meaningfully participate in the review process. It reversed policy on Tribal fees, contrary to guidance by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, by providing carriers need not pay upfront fees to support the cost of Tribal review.” A brief led by the Blackfeet tribe also asked the court to overturn the March order. Plaintiffs “challenge FCC’s attempts to excuse itself from its most basic federal legal obligations to consult with Indian tribes on a government-to-government basis, as both the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), and their corresponding regulations plainly require.”

Mobile shopping activity grew six percentage points in two years, with 45 percent of smartphone users saying they do it, NPD reported Monday, through Aug 31. Larger smartphone screens are partly responsible. Some 100 million consumers shop online via smartphone, said analyst John Buffone. “Consumers are leveraging their smartphones to purchase ‘grab and go’ items, as these purchases can be made conveniently, without investing the time to examine product reviews or visit multiple sites for price comparisons,” analyst Stephen Baker said.

Executives from Midcontinent Communications gave FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr a tour Thursday of the company’s facilities in North Dakota and spoke with him about the citizens broadband radio service band and other issues. “Midco shared its views on the 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands, next generation or 5G fixed wireless technology, and Midco’s preference for county-sized spectrum licenses,” said a filing Sunday in docket 18-120. “Midco also discussed its desire for the rural bidding credits for the priority access license auction in the 3.5 GHz band.” Midco said in written testimony at a Senate hearing last week (see 1810120051) it's testing residential fixed wireless speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload using 3.65 GHz and CBRS spectrum.