“Sprint puts its customers first and is always working to provide clear and necessary information to customers,” a spokesman said in an email Thursday about its settlement with the FTC for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (see 1510210066). “The FTC's relatively new Risk Based Pricing Rule requires certain specific disclosures in specific formats be provided by letter to ASL [Account Spending Limit] customers and applicants,” the spokesman said. Sprint has always “clearly disclosed to consumers during the sales transaction and in multiple notices after the transaction” its $7.99 Spending Limit Program Charge to “ensure customers are aware of and not surprised by the charge,” he said. “The FTC agreed that we were including almost all of the relevant information in our ASL letters, but requested that we modify the format of the letter,” he said. “The Account Spending Limit program is designed to provide postpaid wireless services to customers who may not otherwise qualify for postpaid service,” he said. “We appreciated the dialogue with the FTC and we have already implemented the changes requested by the FTC," he said.

FirstNet plans to make certain that Band 14 (758-769/788-799 MHz) is cleared by mid-summer 2017, the leaders of the public safety network told the FCC in a letter posted by the commission Thursday in docket 06-229. The band provides the 700 MHz spectrum for the network. In August, the FirstNet board authorized funds for moving some public safety agencies out of the band, the authority said. “With the continued assistance of the Commission and the cooperation of Band 14 public safety incumbents, the relocation assistance grant program will allow Band 14 spectrum to be cleared for the deployment and operation of the [nationwide broadband public safety network], while ensuring that the public safety entities operating communications systems on Band 14 have an appropriate lead time, as well as assistance funds, to facilitate the relocation of their public safety operations.” Federal funds for the clearing are to be released in early 2016 and are expected to pay for frequency coordination, technical assistance and equipment retuning, FirstNet said. “The program performance period will likely extend through July 31, 2017, but FirstNet hopes that all of the Band 14 spectrum will be clear well prior to that date.”

AT&T added 2.5 million net new wireless connections in Q3, the company said in a news release Thursday. That included 289,000 postpaid and 466,000 prepaid net adds, the highest number of prepaid adds in eight years, AT&T said. But the biggest growth came through device additions -- 1.6 million in the quarter, including 1 million connected cars. Total wireless churn was 1.33 percent. Other business lines grew at more modest rates -- 26,000 domestic net adds for DirecTV and 192,000 IP broadband net adds. Consolidated revenue was up 19 percent over the year-earlier quarter, driven by DirecTV revenue, at $39.1 billion. Adjusted net income came in at $3 billion, versus $3.1 billion in the same quarter last year. AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said on a call with analysts he sees the net add of prepaid customers, after losing them in the same quarter last year, as the “big story” of the quarter. “This has been a remarkable turn around story for us,” he said. Stephens also emphasized AT&T’s progress in Mexico, where the company recently bought Nextel’s wireless properties and carrier Iusacell. By the end of the year, AT&T expects to cover 40 million POPs with 4G LTE, he said. AT&T is still integrating the two networks, Stephens said. “This is the heavy lifting of the wireless business, but we have done it before and we are confident we can do it again successfully,” he said. “We are also confident that we will grow market share.”

Industry has nothing to fear from the FCC, despite concerns raised by Google and others that the agency’s new device certification rules would prohibit third-party firmware installation on devices, including Wi-Fi routers, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday during a news conference. The FCC has received numerous comments raising that concern (see 1509300063). “I think that everybody ought to calm down and take a deep breath,” Wheeler said. “What we were doing was putting out a notice talking about the responsibility of Wi-Fi routers not to interfere with other pieces of spectrum, which is important, of course, for their own operation.” The FCC only wanted to “flush out” concerns, he said. “There is no way, shape or form” that it was intended to do the “nefarious” things some fear, Wheeler said.

TracFone told the FCC it supports rules in its recent Lifeline reform order requiring eligible telecom carriers to retain for three years and make available for audit copies of customer eligibility documentation as well as documentation that was reviewed to verify subscriber information for the National Lifeline Accountability Database dispute resolution process. The FCC said in the order that the revised rules would “benefit the integrity of the program,” the low-cost carrier said in a filing in docket 11-42. “TracFone concurs fully with that conclusion.”

Sprint will pay $2.95 million in civil penalties to settle FTC charges the company “failed to give proper notice to consumers who were placed in” an Account Spending Limit “program for customers with lower credit scores and charged an extra monthly fee” of $7.99 in addition to cellphone and data services charges, an FTC news release said Wednesday. “Sprint failed to give many consumers required information about why they were placed in a more costly program, and when they did, the notice often came too late for consumers to choose another mobile carrier,” FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich said. In addition to having to pay a $2.95 million penalty for violating the Risk-Based Pricing Rule, the FTC is also requiring Sprint to abide by the rule’s requirements in the future; provide the required notices to consumers within five days of their signing up for Sprint service or by a date that gives them the ability to avoid recurring charges like those in the Account Spending Limit program; and send corrected risk-based pricing notices to consumers who received incomplete notices from the company, the release said. The commission vote to authorize FTC staff to refer the complaint to the Justice Department and to approve the proposed stipulated order was unanimous. The DOJ submitted the proposed order on behalf of the FTC to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas on Wednesday. The order is subject to court approval, the release said.

IEEE launched a task group to examine efficient spectrum sharing in the TV white spaces, the 5 GHz license-exempt and 3.5 GHz shared access bands. “With a growing demand to mitigate co-channel interference among wireless networks and devices, including both IEEE 802 and non-IEEE 802 systems operating under general authorization, the IEEE P802.19.1a Task Group aims to define the network-based coexistence information exchange among devices in order to enable comprehensive network-based coexistence management,” IEEE said in a Tuesday news release.

AT&T will be the first carrier to sell the Kyocera DuraForce XD, a 5.7-inch phablet with military-grade durability and the first phablet in AT&T’s lineup of rugged devices, the carrier said in a news release. DuraForce XD supports enhanced push-to-talk and was designed to withstand dust, water and drops of less than 4 feet, the carrier said Monday.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau reached a $620,500 settlement with General Communication Inc. (GCI) for failing to register cell towers, said a Tuesday news release from the FCC. GCI is the parent company of The Alaska Wireless Network. Before building, the company didn't register 118 cellular communications facilities and failed to properly light three of them to comply with flight safety rules, the release said. The FCC Antenna Structure Registration system works with Federal Aviation Administration regulations to make sure towers aren't a concern for air navigation, the FCC said. GCI also agreed to review its tower inventory to ensure all of its towers are compliant with tower registration and lighting rules, the release said. GCI didn't comment.

Wireless carriers will need to make better use of high-frequency spectrum as they try to keep up with spiraling consumer demand for data, CTIA representatives told Jessica Almond, aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, in a meeting last week, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-177. The FCC is to vote on an NPRM on more use of spectrum bands above 24 MHz at its meeting Thursday (see 1510190067). Spectrum bands above 24 GHz "may yield extensive amounts of contiguous spectrum blocks (gigahertz rather than megahertz available in lower spectrum bands), potentially allowing the provision of extensive throughput and capacity improvements as compared to other spectrum bands available for mobile services,” CTIA said. “However, CTIA noted that such capabilities may be limited to portions of densely populated areas of the country due to the inherent propagation limits associated with spectrum above 24 GHz. CTIA also emphasized the need for very small cells, reduced barriers to small cell siting, and the need for fiber backhaul to enable these deployments.”