Nvidia’s automotive platforms for the connected car “remain on a sharp upward trajectory, registering better than 80 percent growth” over last year, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said Wednesday on an earnings call. “More than 7.5 million cars with our technology are now on the road, up from 4.7 million a year ago.” At CES, the company bowed Nvidia Drive, “a computing platform for next-generation advanced driver assistant systems and digital cockpits,” Kress said. Nvidia Drive “is basically a mobile super chip, a mobile super computer, with a ton of software on top,” CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in Q&A. The platform enables “a very advanced digital cockpit,” Huang said. “You know that we're incredibly good at computer graphics, and the things that we can do in the car with more and more displays showing up in the car is pretty wonderful.”

Alternative early upgrade and no-contract wireless plans are disrupting the market’s traditional purchase model for handsets, said Parks Associates research released Thursday. A quarter of T-Mobile subscribers prefer the traditional two-year wireless contract model with a subsidized handset, while a third prefer to pay full price upfront and 31 percent would rather pay in monthly installments, Parks said. T-Mobile and AT&T “have tapped into the consumer desire for the latest and greatest smartphone with their early-upgrade programs,” said Harry Wang, Parks director-health and mobile product research. Some 14 percent of smartphone owners plan to upgrade to their next device more quickly than they did for their current device, with a quarter of them citing special operator incentives as the reason. “These alternative plans are one stone for two birds -- they help operators acquire new subscribers and retain loyal, high-value customers,” Wang said. The challenge for operators is to persuade smartphone users to upgrade early and buy more-profitable data plans while minimizing voluntary customer churn, he said.

There are “some limitations” to the FCC’s agreement with major U.S. wireless carriers to let customers switch networks on their mobile devices, Sherwin Siy, Public Knowledge vice president-legal affairs, said in a news release Wednesday. Those carriers kept a commitment to adopt policies within a year allowing customers to switch networks while keeping their existing devices, two FCC officials said in a Wednesday blog post (see 1502110050 and 1502120028). Consumers are still barred from unlocking their mobile phones, which was the “original source of concern,” Siy said. The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, which allows such unlocking, is “only effective for a short period of time,” he said. Siy noted PK’s recent comments to the Copyright Office seeking to allow unlocking exemptions under Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 (see 1502110062). PK hopes Congress will “ensure that such a change can be made permanently, and settle the matter once and for all," Siy said.

CTIA urged the FCC to ensure a new open Internet framework won’t hinder differentiated offerings and choices that mobile consumers currently have. The market currently relies on Communications Act Title I classification, and Title II with forbearance isn’t an appropriate framework for mobile wireless broadband, the association said in an ex parte notice filed Wednesday in docket 10-127. The commission can ensure stability and investment in the mobile broadband market with Section 706, it said. Section 332 keeps the commission from treating mobile broadband services as common carriers, it said. The filing included a white paper describing the importance of competition in an open Internet and the consumer benefits of a competitive mobile wireless industry.

The FCC Wireless Bureau designated the American Society for Health Care Engineering of the American Hospital Association (ASHE/AHA) to be frequency coordinator for Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) operations in the 2360-2390 MHz band. Use of the MBAN will let doctors wirelessly monitor and log data from patients with chronic diseases. The only other applicant was the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, the bureau said Wednesday in its order. While both groups are qualified, the bureau cited ASHE/AHA’s experience as the coordinator for the wireless medical telemetry service, where it maintains and operates a database that includes registration data for more than 9,000 WMTS systems located in more than 3,400 hospitals. “Health care facilities will be better served by having a single point of contact for WMTS and MBAN coordination, given the similar purposes of the two services,” the bureau said. It also cited the hospital association’s “institutional knowledge of the health care industry in general, and its familiarity with the medical telemetry user community in particular.” The bureau noted that the group will work with Comsearch as a consultant. The MBAN order was years in the making and was approved in May 2012 (see 1205250045).

Wilson Electronics, which manufactures cell signal boosters, released the newly redesigned Pro Signal Meter for the custom installer market, the company said Wednesday. The “professional grade” tool detects available cellular signals at a given location, identifies frequencies, measures signal strength and bandwidth, and displays the information on an integrated LED screen, Wilson said in a news release. “The Pro Signal Meter can be used indoors or out, and detects 2G, 3G and 4G frequency bands used by all North American cellular service providers.” The company also calls itself weBoost.

Even when an individual isn't using an app on a smartphone, many apps still know the user's location, said an FTC blog post by Amanda Koulousias, an attorney in the Privacy and Identity Protection Division. Map apps that can give a consumer directions quickly, or a shopping app that notifies consumers about a sale nearby, may be considered helpful, Koulousias said. “But this kind of tracking also increases the amount of information apps collect -- and potentially share -- about you.” Consumers can often disable an app’s ability to track their location by changing the app’s settings, she said. “Depending on your device’s operating system, there might be system settings that can help, too.”

Gogo urged the FCC to allow for at least three licensees in the proposed air-ground mobile broadband service (AGMBS) band, said an ex parte filing on various meetings at the agency in docket 13-114. Dividing the 500 MHz band three or more ways would still give each licensee sufficient capacity to offer “robust service,” Gogo said. It urged the agency to adopt a five-year substantial service requirement “or, in the alternative, a seven-year requirement with an interim construction benchmark” as part of the rules. Gogo said it would comply with all applicable rules and directives from law enforcement on air safety. “Technical complexity, physical constraints and cost” mean most aircraft would be able to offer service from only one provider, Gogo conceded. “Nonetheless, AGMBS providers likely would compete on a periodic basis for contracts to provide service to those aircraft, and offering at least three 14 GHz licenses for auction -- with an aggregation limit of 250 MHz -- would help ensure a competitive inflight communications market.”

Various industry groups and Globalstar met with FCC officials to discuss Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) and its potential effect on adjacent unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band, a filing in docket 13-213 said. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, NCTA, Wi-Fi Alliance and Wireless Internet Service Providers Association attended the meeting. Some expressed concerns about potential interference to unlicensed operations, the filing said. “Globalstar’s representatives stated their view that TLPS will have little to no impact on these unlicensed operations, and noted that Globalstar is currently deploying TLPS on an experimental basis.”

The major U.S. wireless carriers have kept a commitment to adopt policies within a year allowing customers to switch networks while keeping their existing devices, two FCC officials said in a Wednesday blog post. “We congratulate CTIA and the participating wireless providers for reaching this important milestone,” wrote Roger Sherman, chief of the Wireless Bureau, and Kris Monteith, acting chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The rules require carriers to unlock devices “no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time and usage requirements,” they said. Participating carriers also have agreed to notify subscribers when their devices are eligible for unlocking, if they're not automatically unlocked, and to post unlocking information on their websites, they said. “Full implementation of the unlocking principles is a positive development for both consumers and wireless providers, as it increases competition to innovate,” the FCC officials said. CTIA is pleased the FCC recognized that carriers met the deadline, Scott Bergmann, vice president-regulatory affairs, said. “We also remind consumers that an unlocked device does not necessarily mean an interoperable one since different carriers use different technologies and spectrum bands.”