Netflix unwrapped a data calculator tool that lets subscribers see how much data they're using when streaming video on cellular networks. In a blog post, Eddy Wu, director-product innovation, said the tool’s default setting lets users stream about three hours of TV shows and movies per gigabyte of data, translating to a bitrate of roughly 600 kbps. Testing showed that on cellular networks, this setting "balances good video quality with lower data usage to help avoid exceeding data caps and incurring overage fees,” said Wu. Users with a higher data cap on their mobile plan can adjust the setting to stream at higher bitrates, he said. Netflix’s goal is to give users "more control and greater choice” in managing their data usage regardless of data plan, he said. Users need to update their Netflix app to the most recent version to access the cellular data usage function. Bitrates could change over time, said Wu, because Netflix is “always working on ways to improve picture quality while streaming more efficiently.” Actual data usage can vary based on device and network conditions, and the mobile carrier may affect data usage even if users select a higher bitrate setting in the app, he said. The setting affects data usage while viewing content on a mobile device over a cellar network but doesn’t affect Wi-Fi streaming, he said. “Three cheers for Netflix for user empowerment, but there’s no principled reason why broadband operators shouldn’t be able to give users the same option,” responded Berin Szóka, president of TechFreedom. “The rhetoric for ‘net neutrality’ has always been about user empowerment. But the FCC wound up writing a hard-line rule that seems to completely ban broadband providers from adjusting video quality even if users want that. That’s crazy."
Market maturation in smartphones is slowing sales growth in wireless semiconductors, IHS said in a Wednesday report. “Revenue associated with the wireless competitive landscape continued to serve as a bright spot in the larger semiconductor market in 2015,” but that likely won’t be so in 2016, said the research firm. “Due to slowing sales of smartphones and other wireless devices, the wireless competitive landscape faces a set of challenges” that could result in slower sales growth for wireless semiconductors this year, it said. That Apple recently reported its first-ever quarterly year-on-year iPhone unit sales decline indicates “the potential magnitude of the softness in the premium smartphone market,” IHS said. “If the iPhone and other premium smartphones fail to gain enough traction to support growth in that market segment, it may be reflected in the underlying semiconductor market in 2016.”
The FCC was right to hold a daylong workshop Tuesday (see 1605030056) on small cells and distributed antenna systems, said Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, in a statement. “Innovative small cell and DAS technologies have a lower impact and are crucial to the deployment of 5G and the Internet of Things,” Bergmann said. “We strongly encourage the Commission to move as quickly as possible to streamline the small cell/DAS siting process to ensure that these facilities can be efficiently integrated into high-band spectrum, which will serve as a complement to the low- and mid-band spectrum that wireless providers are deploying.”
Carrier radio frequencies in the 800 MHz band are interfering with the Port Authority public safety radios, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in an ex parte letter to the FCC. It's dated May 3, one week after the FCC approved rules designed to guard against interference to public safety communications in the 800 MHz National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee (NPSPAC) band (see 1604250056). Interference has rendered inoperable 800 MHz NPSPAC portable radio receivers of the Port Authority Police Department and others, the Port Authority said. The Port Authority attached spectrum analyzer data for interference experienced during 2015 in New York City and Union City, New Jersey. When notified, wireless carriers have been responsive and cooperative, it said: “However, this remediation does not preclude similar harmful RFI on other occasions as we are unable to predict the location, duration or timing of future occurrences.”
Significant progress has been made in cutting international mobile roaming (IMR) prices since 2012, “either by ensuring effective competition or, in its absence, applying regulation,” said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in a report. OECD members agreed to recommendations on IMR rates in 2012. Roaming reforms have led to new foreign investment including by AT&T, which is completing the integration of two Mexican mobile network operators (MNOs) into its network, following the acquisition of both, the paper said. “While this reduces the number of MNOs from four to three in Mexico, this will be offset by the plans to introduce a national wholesale wireless network,” OECD said. AT&T’s move led to “roam like at home” plans from smaller rivals Sprint and T-Mobile for subscribers traveling to Mexico or Canada, OECD said. OECD sees more room for improvement. “Despite the reduction in prices, however, roaming prices in many countries are far from competitive,” the group said. “In many regions the perception is that price reductions have been insufficient and this has been reinforced by the fact that domestic mobile (and fixed) telecommunication prices have fallen considerably in competitive markets.” Verena Weber, with the OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Directorate, said in a recent blog post that roaming reform has worked. Weber said that, in the past when people were delayed while traveling abroad, it was too expensive to use a smartphone to check for alternatives online and inform others they had to meet. “While recently travelling in Germany, I found myself in exactly this situation -- in a train that was delayed at a station, but this time with the difference of having a roam-like-at-home plan,” she wrote. “While I was checking online maps to see how I could still make my appointment on time, I was chatting with friends, agreeing on a new meeting place and receiving real-time updates from another friend on the train delays. All of this was included in my normal French mobile plan, without any additional costs.”
People are keeping their handsets longer, that much is clear from various quarterly wireless industry financial reports from the most recent quarter, Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson, wrote investors Wednesday. “This is bad news for handset makers, but generally good for carriers,” Moffett said. “But will it last?” Another trend is low capital spending, particularly from AT&T and Sprint, he wrote. “It’s hard to see how spending at this level is sustainable in a world of soaring usage.” The distinction between prepaid and postpaid “is eroding,” he said. Customers buying phones on installment plans “make the distinction largely irrelevant” and “post-paid prices are falling to similar price points,” he said. “Pre-paid growth accelerated, with a powerful resurgence in branded pre-paid, and a commensurate decline in the reseller channel. Branded pre-paid is becoming a two-horse race, with AT&T and T-Mobile gaining and Sprint losing ground.” Moffett also sees an “incredible acceleration in T-Mobile’s dominance.” All indicators on T-Mobile are good, he said. “T-Mobile’s subscriber share gains in both pre-paid and post-paid have accelerated, and T-Mobile has done it while their like-for-like [average revenue per user] actually grew and bad debt fell,” he said. “Their free cash flow story is playing out much the way we would have hoped. But T-Mobile’s share price has barely budged, and neither we nor anyone else with whom we’ve spoken can figure out why.” Sprint Tuesday was the last of the four major wireless carriers to report results (see 1605030049).
States should adopt rules of the road for wireless pole attachments that speed deployment of small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS), CTIA said in a report released Wednesday. Congress and the FCC have required that utilities give wireless providers nondiscriminatory access to poles, “but state rules on utility pole attachments remain a complex checkerboard of different requirements,” CTIA said. The association advises states to put in place: nondiscriminatory access, mandatory timelines, just and reasonable rates and an effective complaint process. “We all want more wireless deployments, better wireless service and coverage, and all the benefits of 5G service, smart cities, and the connected life,” CTIA said. “A crucial step states should take to unlock those benefits for consumers is to establish pole attachment and siting rules that ensure fair and reasonable access to utility poles.” Carriers are deploying hundreds of thousands of small cells, the report said. AT&T and Verizon alone plan to deploy 100,000 small cells in 2016 and Sprint plans tens of thousands of small cells in the near future, CTIA said. “Deployment of 100,000 small cells in only one year represents approximately one third of the total number of traditional cell cites deployed over the previous two decades.” CTIA estimated the U.S. wireless industry will deploy 16 million DAS nodes by 2018. An estimated 120 million utility poles were in use in the U.S. as of 2005, CTIA said. “Utility poles allow denser deployments with lower elevation installations that are optimal for DAS and small cells covering high demand, localized areas where macrocells cannot efficiently operate.”
Wireless carriers’ use of five or six digit "short codes" to block spam in text messages protects consumers, said a perspective piece released by the Phoenix Center Wednesday. It said the FCC should reject a petition by Twilio asking the agency to clarify that messaging services should be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act (see 1510130040). “A mobile wireless carrier has no interest in blocking messages that a consumer wishes to receive, but it has powerful incentives to block nuisance messages,” the paper said. “The interests of mobile carriers and consumers are aligned -- any profit-increasing action taken to manage unsolicited bulk messages also increases consumer well-being. Nothing in the Twilio proceeding’s record suggests otherwise.” Managing the huge amount of content flowing over networks "is a herculean task, but the mobile wireless industry has done an effective job," the paper said. The wireless industry has done a good job of protecting the integrity of texting, said George Ford, center chief economist and co-author of the paper. "Twilio's petition appears to be a short-sighted effort to boost its profits by sabotaging the mobile wireless industry and its consumers,” he said in a news release: “The FCC shouldn't take Twilio's petition seriously, but that doesn't mean the Commission won't." Last month, CTIA members met to discuss association guidelines for when short codes should be used for texting rather than standard 10-digit phone numbers (see 1604190043). “You don’t need a Ph.D. or econobabble formulas to know that consumers don’t want unsolicited messages,” said Michael Hazzard, a lawyer at Arent Fox who represents Twilio. “Twilio doesn’t, either, which is one of the reasons Twilio has asked the FCC to regulate SMS under Title II.” Twilio and other companies employ “robust network management techniques to prevent misuse of the network,” he said. Carrier blocking of text messages “is wholly untethered from consumer choice,” Hazzard told us. “The record makes this clear, and every day consumers are being harmed. Schools and teachers are having messages blocked to and from students. First responders are not getting critical messages. Authentication passcodes critical to cybersecurity are routinely filtered. No one should have to die or be seriously injured before the commission takes action to stop this unprecedented and illegal blocking.”
Nokia joined the Z-Wave Alliance to advance its smart home business strategy, said the alliance Tuesday, and it implemented Z-Wave in its latest generation of smart home gateway products. “Interoperability is key” to realizing the full potential of the smart home, said Leopold Diouf, Nokia general manager-digital home.
Chipmaker Integrated Device Technology thinks it’s just “a matter of time” before “major players” move into wireless charging “in more of the traditional smartphone areas,” CEO Gregory Waters said on a Monday earnings call. Though any mass-market “pickup” in wireless smartphone charging “could take a year or even more to really turn into a meaningful revenue number,” even the mass-market segment is showing signs that it’s “going well ahead of our expectations,” Waters said. For example, “we have built thousands of mass market kits for wireless charging and keep selling out of them,” he said. “So I think the adoption of wireless charging is simply a matter of timing right now.”