AT&T is now covering 310 million POPs in the U.S. with “high-quality LTE coverage” capable of providing video “just like our broadband wired networks are,” Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. Stephens said the DirecTV buy gives AT&T an advantage over its main rivals. “Dish [Network] isn't going to have the broadband capability, so they're not going to have the owner's economics over wireless,” he said. “Verizon is not going to have the broadband capabilities. They don't have the satellite or the scale in delivering and negotiating with content providers.” Stephens also said he welcomes a move by Apple to start allowing customers to buy iPhones through extended payments. “Quite simply from a very somewhat selfish viewpoint, if the handset manufacturers want to take the responsibility for the $600 financing and it doesn't have to go on our balance sheet, that's not necessarily a bad thing for us at all,” he said Wednesday. “We sell a lot more iPhones on our accounts than Apple does. … I think they have about 200 stores, we have about 2,300.” Stephens said AT&T is making a $3 billion investment in the Mexican wireless market and expects to cover 40 million POPS by the end of the year with LTE. “Those will be the ones that certainly were easier to do in denser areas and higher revenue opportunities,” Stephens said. “We are looking forward to growing customers both in the prepaid and the postpaid base, but I want to tell you that the success is also going to be in how much we attract in the U.S. business and how much more business we get from U.S. consumers and business customers who want to do business in Mexico.”

Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better for smartphone battery performance, Strategy Analytics said in a report. The research firm tested the battery performance of “flagship” smartphones from Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony and found that the smartphones with the largest battery capacities didn’t provide the longest battery life, it said Wednesday. “Battery life is consistently one of the most important aspects taken into consideration when a consumer purchases a new smartphone” and also is one of the biggest sources of “smartphone owner dissatisfaction,” it said.

Frontier Communications customers can qualify for a one-year Amazon Prime membership worth $99 when they sign up for broadband service and other packages, the telco said in a Wednesday announcement. Amazon Prime membership includes free two-day shipping on most Amazon items and unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes, Frontier said. Terms are outlined here.

FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel urged renewed focus on ways to accommodate both dedicated short-range communications service (DSRC) systems and Wi-Fi in the 5.9 GHz band. The two said in a Wednesday blog post they saw DSRC in action over the summer on a joint visit to Michigan. “While there, we test-drove new car safety prototypes, listened to concerns about possible Wi-Fi interference, and discussed spectrum sharing with both auto manufacturers and researchers,” they said. “We also got the chance to see Mcity, one testing ground for the driverless cars of the future.” O’Rielly and Rosenworcel said it's an important development that members of the Senate are leaning on the Departments of Commerce and Transportation and the FCC to test the 5.9 GHz band for its sharing possibilities (see 1509100064). “But we are also impatient, and a lot of work lies ahead,” they said. “So we will press the Commission to start a proceeding to set testing parameters, evaluate results, and seek public comment on what we learn from our tests. A fair testing process will help all interested parties -- and we will work to ensure it proceeds expeditiously.”

AT&T and Verizon joined Samsung and Sony as the latest Best Buy vendors fronting stores within a store at the big-box retailer, the companies said Tuesday. “Verizon Experience” stores at 250 Best Buy locations will let shoppers "experience the latest wireless connected devices, tablets, smartphones, apps and services,” Verizon said in an announcement. As with the Samsung and Sony Experience stores, the Verizon Experience stores will be staffed by Best Buy employees, Verizon said. As for AT&T, by the end of 2015, 250 Best Buy locations across the country "will have a new AT&T space to further help customers personalize their connected experience," Andy Shibley, AT&T Mobility senior vice president-national retail, said Tuesday in a blog post.

Smartphone makers are focusing on price, as the average size and number of features in the devices has been increasing, said Andrew Rassweiler, IHS senior director-cost benchmarking services, during a session in Santa Clara, California, at the company's conference. “As you reach the limits of what you can do on some of these features, they begin to become less relevant to the consumer,” Rassweiler said Monday, and that turns the focus to price with “hundred dollar BOM [bill of materials] and the $50 Android One.” In its effort to challenge the iPhone, Samsung has continued to build more technology into its Galaxy smartphones at a higher cost, while Apple costs have remained relatively stable, Rassweiler said.

The FCC must find that mobile broadband deployment is “reasonable and timely,” Mobile Future said in a filing Tuesday, in response the FCC’s Broadband Progress Notice of Inquiry. The filing in docket 15-191 hadn't been posted by the FCC. “Mobile broadband deployment is not only reasonable and timely, it is remarkable, and by all indicators, may be considered perhaps the outstanding technical, investment, and innovation achievements of our era,” Mobile Future said. “It is not just that the United States leads the world in deployment of mobile broadband. Most impressively, providers have deployed LTE service covering 98.5 percent of the U.S. population in a span of just three and a half years.”

Residents of and visitors to Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia and surrounding communities will be in "No Drone Zones" Sept. 22-27 during Pope Francis’s visit to the U.S., a Federal Aviation Administration news release said Tuesday. "If you plan to attend any of the Papal visit events, please leave your drone at home," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said. "Anyone flying a drone within the designated restricted areas may be subject to civil and criminal charges." Use of any unmanned aircraft, including radio-controlled model aircraft, is prohibited anywhere the pope will visit, the release said. Airspace around Washington, D.C., is more restricted than in any other part of the country, with expanded restrictions on aircraft applying to an expanded area, it said.

Apple’s watchOS will have 47 percent of the smart wristwear market by 2019, an IDC wearables report said. Smart wristwear shipments are forecast to grow from 24 million units globally this year to 85 million units by 2019, IDC said. A proliferation of devices, expanded experiences and a range of price points will lift overall consumer demand for wearables to 173 million worldwide by 2019, IDC said Monday. In 2015, total wearables shipments are forecast to reach 76 million units, up 163 percent from last year, it said. Smart wearables are roughly a third of the total wearables market, compared with basic wearables, led by fitness trackers, which are the rest, analyst Jitesh Ubrani said. Smart wearables are projected to surpass basic wearables in 2018 due to advancements in user interfaces and features, he said. Smart wristwear -- including watches and bands capable of running third-party apps -- are driving the smart wearables category, led by Apple Watch, the Motorola Moto 360, Samsung’s Gear S devices and the Pebble Time, the industry research firm said. More vendors are entering the space, “setting the stage for more selection and ultimately more volumes,” Ramon Llamas, research manager, said.

The numbers were “extremely positive” over the weekend on the pre-sale of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple said Monday in a statement: "We are on pace to beat last year's 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale Sept. 25." BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk noted Monday that for the first time since the release of the 3GS in 2009 Apple isn't releasing pre-order numbers. “Of course in 2013, there was no pre-order for the iPhone 5S, so there was no data to report,” Piecyk said in a blog post. “Apple instead indicated that it would top last year’s record first weekend sales of 10 million units. While this is encouraging, first weekend sales includes China this year, more than doubling the addressable market for launch day compared to last year when China was not launched until mid-October.”