TAG Mobile asked for an additional 30 days to appeal a July 24 decision by Universal Service Administrative Co. on reimbursement to the carrier for providing service under the Lifeline program. The appeal is otherwise due Tuesday, but TAG told the FCC the questions raised are complicated. “The Administrator’s Decision unreasonably discounts the documentation TAG Mobile has already provided and requests additional documentation from TAG Mobile’s underlying carriers,” TAG said. “Over the course of the audit period, this information has proven time-consuming to seek and difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. The information USAC identifies as being necessary to refute USAC’s audit findings, if available, resides in the systems maintained by TAG Mobile’s intermediary or underlying carriers, which TAG Mobile neither has access to nor controls.” The filing was posted Monday in docket 11-42.

Ericsson and LG Uplus signed an agreement to collaborate on the development of IoT and 5G technologies, Ericsson said in a news release Monday. The agreement will run until 2020, Ericsson said, and covers the areas of IoT infrastructure and narrow-band LTE, software-defined networking and network functions virtualization, readying the core 5G network, global content delivery networks and advanced IoT technologies. The companies will share research and testing results and "work together to prepare a roadmap for long-term network development," Ericsson said.

The weapon of choice in fights over LTE-U/Wi-Fi interoperability is increasingly short cartoons of playground bullies. The cable industry, in its opposition to LTE-U, "is "acting like the bully who got to the playground first and now won't let the new kid play on the playground," Media Freedom said in a YouTube video posted Monday in which "Big Cable" is depicted as a unibrowed lunkhead who is shown the value of sharing. The cable industry's opposition to LTE-U is all about fear of competition from a better wireless service under the pretext of worries about Wi-Fi interference, Media Freedom said in a companion blog Monday. "Tests clearly show that LTE-U coexists and 'plays nicely' with Wi-Fi," said the free-market advocacy group in part funded by the communications industry. "The cable industry claims otherwise, and is using every excuse in the book to delay its implementation, going so far as to urge the FCC ‘to act’ and ensure the ‘right standards’ are in place, basically regulating unregulated unlicensed spectrum where innovation has flourished." The "bully" tag and playground setting are almost identical to language and imagery language the WifiForward coalition used in a video it put out earlier this month (see 1509090046) as it raised concerns about Wi-Fi interference from LTE-U.

CTIA and representatives of its member companies met with FCC officials to discuss a July CTIA petition for reconsideration (see 1507230067) on the agency’s rules for the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. The industry officials discussed the need to provide priority access license holders with renewal expectancy and address “longer license terms, power limitations” and the auction process for the licenses. CTIA also recommended that the commission encourage the multistakeholder group Wireless Innovation Forum to determine a minimum set of data to be delivered to an external spectrum access system (SAS) to perform its functions, the association said in a filing posted Friday in docket 12-354. “We further recommended that the Commission ensure that SAS operators internally cabin off any data from other portions of their respective business, and prohibit them from using this data for any purpose other than for operation of the SAS.”

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam responded to a barrage of disparaging comments by T-Mobile CEO John Legere in recent weeks (see 1509180053). During a CNBC interview Thursday, which a Verizon spokesman pointed us to for comment Friday, McAdam dismissed Legere's comments -- which have frequently included referring to both Verizon and AT&T as "dumb and dumber." To "be honest, I don't pay any attention to it," McAdam said. "You know, I think it has worked for him. That is part of the persona of [T-Mobile]. I think if our customers and our investors, if I tried to do that, would look at me like I was crazy." Verizon is focused on customers' needs, as well as network and product improvements, he said. "We are doing a pretty good job at that and we will stay that course."

The Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Coalition asked the FCC to allocate more spectrum for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), said a filing in the FCC docket on implementing decisions made at the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference. The commission should “support innovation and technology leadership in the United States by moving quickly in this proceeding, and others, to ensure that spectrum is available to support the wide range of communications functions that are critical to UAS,” the coalition said. “These functions include but are not limited to aircraft-to-ground, ground-to-aircraft, and aircraft-to-aircraft communications needed for both line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight control links, diagnostics, tracking, collision avoidance and payload communications.” The filing was posted Friday in docket 14-177.

CTIA asked for FCC permission to withdraw a 2001 petition for reconsideration of a 2000 order adopting the 211 and 511 abbreviated dialing code requirements for wireless carriers. The filing was posted Friday in docket 92-105.

Ericsson extended its Wi-Fi calling to a multidevice platform, the company said in a news release. The functionality of the new service enables operators to make voice calls on Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as tablets and personal computers, Ericsson said Thursday.

The FirstNet board plans two days of meetings, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, at the Powell Federal Building in Reston, Virginia, said a notice in Thursday's Federal Register. FirstNet’s committees are to meet the first day, starting at 8 a.m., the notice said. The full board meets the second day, also starting at 8 a.m.

A voucher-based system “would be inappropriate for Lifeline,” said TracFone CEO F.J. Pollak and others from the low-cost carrier in meetings with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and others at the FCC, said filings posted in docket 11-42. It would “impose unnecessary burdens” on low-income households in order to continue to receive Lifeline service, the carrier said. TracFone also counseled against limiting the program to those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, one proposal being examined by the FCC.