The U.S. mobile handset recycle rate fell 15 percent last year, or by 25 million phones, said a report by Recon Analytics that predicted a downward trend for smartphone sales with far-reaching effects just as more spectrum is opening for new services. Of the 143 million mobile phones sold in the U.S. in 2014, nine in 10 were smartphones, said Recon analyst Roger Entner, which compares with smartphone sales of roughly 50 percent the prior year. With device sales and new subscriber additions declining, the handset replacement rate has “abruptly slowed to the lowest rate since we began calculating the metric,” said Entner. He forecasts device sales will decline 5 percent to 136 million in 2015 and slip again in 2016 to 131 million. Consumers’ phone purchase patterns have changed, said Entner, with a growing number delaying upgrades to fulfill two-year contract obligations for lower monthly service plans. Consumers replacing their phones focused on newer, higher-priced devices, which resulted in device revenue slipping only 5 percent in 2014 despite the 15 percent drop in unit sales, said Entner. Short term, the movement to higher-priced devices bumps up revenue and profitability for mobile carriers, he said. The long-term trend is negative, because it takes longer for new devices to reach the network, exacerbated by the introduction of equipment installment plans (EIP) that have extended the handset replacement cycle by 4.1 months to 26.5 months in 2014, Entner said. The percentage of devices being replaced every year grew from 45 percent in 2013 to 49 percent last year, compared with the percentage of devices that replaced obsolete devices, which jumped from 15 percent in 2013 to 35 percent a year later, said Entner. Devices replaced on the traditional two-year schedule fell from 40 percent in 2013 to 16 percent last year, he said. A wedge, Entner said, is forming in Americans’ purchasing behavior between those who upgrade phones every year and those who upgrade when the phone breaks or becomes obsolete. App capabilities may be “artificially restrained” as developers cater to a consumer less prone to take advantage of new technologies to improve the utility of the device and service, he said. Software developers will have to consider that a large percentage of smartphones in use won’t be able to run cutting-edge apps, said Entner. Some developers won’t build the latest features into their apps, slowing the pace of innovation, he said. Older devices in the market that don’t have the latest electronics won’t be able to access new spectrum bands as they come online, said Entner. A six-year-old iPhone 3GS will achieve download speeds of 2 Mbps with its first-generation WCDMA chipsets, compared with an iPhone 6 that can download the content 25 times faster and access newly licensed spectrum, said Entner. “As fewer people upgrade their devices, the pace with which consumers can use new unused parts of the networks on new spectrum slows down and consumers are stuck on congested legacy spectrum,” Entner said, underscoring that mobile operators spent more than $45 billion on new spectrum in the recent AWS-3 auction. The transition to Voice over LTE (VoLTE) could be slowed by an “embedded base of older devices,” said Entner, and consumers' experience with speed and graphics could suffer, leading to buffering or long waits as content loads. “Longer-term developments could be largely offset in the short term by the slowed innovation and cramped spectrum caused by delayed handset replacement,” the researcher said. While following T-Mobile into the EIP space, AT&T has been able to defend its base against T-Mobile and other operators that offer EIP financial benefits as “device subsidy expenditures have declined significantly,” said Entner. He envisions AT&T encountering the same problems as T-Mobile as “the device universe" of its customers ages. Verizon is holding on to the status quo while offering consumers the option to do EIP, said Entner. Verizon benefits less from the short-term gains of EIP but “will also not suffer as much from a lengthened handset replacement cycle,” Entner said. He called Sprint, which “dabbles” in EIP offers, a “long-term winner.” The carrier's 24-month handset leasing program is a “viable plan” to both retain the device upgrade cycle and “reap the benefits from a customer base with newer devices,” Entner said.

Mothers’ ownership of smartphones in the U.S. passed that of laptop and desktop computers for the first time, said a fall study on the “lives of moms" by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. IAB's report, released Tuesday, compares technology habits and media behaviors of online moms aged 18-32 in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, China and the U.K. U.S. moms also are spending 35 percent more time online via their smartphones than via computers, it said. Elsewhere, 76 percent of millennial moms in Brazil own smartphones, up from 25 percent in 2012, and 93 percent of U.K. moms own smartphones, up from 73 percent two years ago. China leads the five countries in smartphone penetration among moms at 95 percent (up from 62 percent in 2012), followed closely by Canada at 94 percent, up from 59 percent two years ago, IAB said. Tablet ownership is on the rise, too, with China making the biggest gains, from 15 percent penetration in 2012 to 50 percent, while the U.K. penetration jumped from 18 percent to 66 percent. U.S. millennial moms spend more time with media overall at 8.9 hours daily, up from 8.3 hours in 2012, far more than the 2.8 hours they spend watching TV, IAB said, and more than the 1.7 hours spent on PCs. “With millennials making up the majority of new moms, brands and agencies need to think of this valuable demographic as tech-savvy and mobile-first, if they want to earn their interest and loyalty,” said Anna Bager, IAB senior vice president-mobile and video. The report is based on multiple sources, including an in-depth survey conducted by BabyCenter with 10,533 moms Nov. 3-Dec. 21, with U.S. qualitative research gathered via in-person friendship groups, and a longitudinal six-month online discussion group, IAB said. The U.S. portion of the survey included 2,742 participants, of whom 1,672 were millennial moms.

U.S. Cellular supports smartphone theft deterrence “via a diverse set of initiatives,” it said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in docket 14-143. “U.S. Cellular encourages all of our [operating system] or device partners to develop anti-theft capabilities, and in no way prohibits or restricts development of these capabilities through our requirements,” the carrier said. “Today, over 96 percent of our smartphone customer base is covered by solutions provided at no cost by our device or OS partners. We would welcome any efforts by our device or OS partners to have such functionality operational by default.”

CTIA and PCIA representatives told FCC officials they expect to wrap up shortly a checklist and model ordinance to help local governments implement new FCC rules on speeding up wireless siting decisions (see 1410170048). The associations have been holding monthly discussions since December with the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, NATOA and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, CTIA and PCIA said in a filing in docket 13-238. “The goal of the parties is to produce a toolkit of materials that will help resource-constrained municipalities implement the new rules promulgated by the FCC’s Acceleration of Broadband Deployment Report and Order that implement and define terms of Section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act,” said the filing.

NTIA and the FCC plan to host a public workshop this spring to collect more input on a proposed model spectrum city program, NTIA said Tuesday in a blog post. “Among the topics the workshop is likely to explore include what types of cities would be best for testing sharing technologies, how should these model city experiments be funded, and what frequencies and applications should be part of the test?” NTIA said. NTIA and FCC took comments on the proposal last summer (see 1409020051) and recently met with those who filed comments to seek additional advice, NTIA said.

A push by the Electronic Privacy Information Center to get access to the Department of Homeland Security Standard Operating Procedure 303, a protocol for shutting down wireless networks during critical emergencies, hit a snag Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A lower court ordered DHS to hand over the document after EPIC sued and said disclosure is required by the Freedom of Information Act and DHS had been willing to surrender only a heavily redacted copy. The department appealed, citing FOIA exemption 7(F) and arguments that production of SOP 303 could reasonably be expected to endanger many individuals’ lives or physical safety. The appeals court agreed, in an opinion written by Judge Judith Rogers. The D.C. Circuit ordered the lower court to decide whether any reasonably segregable portions of SOP 303 can be disclosed. The court cited a declaration filed by James Holzer, a senior DHS FOIA officer. Holzer had argued that making SOP 303 public would ”enable bad actors to insert themselves into the process of shutting down or reactivating wireless networks by appropriating verification methods and then impersonating officials designated for involvement in the verification process,” the court said. The bad actors could then “freely use wireless networks to activate . . . improvised explosive devices,” the declaration said. The court agreed. “We hold that the Department permissibly withheld much, if not all of SOP 303, because its release, as described in the Holzer declaration, could reasonably be expected to endanger individuals’ lives or physical safety,” Rogers wrote.

Crestron launched a proximity detection beacon called PinPoint that identifies a users’ location in a home and automatically displays controls for that space on their iOS devices, the company said Monday. The beacon solves what Crestron called the “room default problem” created by controlling smart home technology with mobile devices, which requires homeowners to navigate to different room menus on an app when they change rooms. The PinPoint beacon knows which room a user is in and automatically displays controls for the room on an iOS smartphone or tablet, Crestron said. Sean Goldstein, vice president-marketing, described in a news release a scenario where a user walks into a room with an iPad and control for lighting scenes, music and volume are available at the touch of a button. “Move to the kitchen, and as you do the lighting scenes for the kitchen appear,” he said. Using PinPoint, integrators can more precisely customize Crestron system features for family members based room location, it said. An Internet radio station can follow a person around the house, automatically turning on in each room the person walks into, for instance. Beacons can be configured in up to 100 rooms, and once devices are paired with the PinPoint app, they'll automatically communicate via Bluetooth with beacons throughout the home, Crestron said. The company also said Panasonic TH-98LQ70 and TH-84LQ70 4K UltraHD TVs are Crestron-certified, ensuring that the TVs will deliver true 10 Gbps data rates, interface with Crestron's DigitalMedia technology to handle cable lengths found in integrated AV systems and work with other 4K products in a DigitalMedia system.

The FCC published an NPRM seeking comment on a proposal that the agency introduce new, full-power, interstitial 12.5 kHz offset channels in the 809-817/854-862 MHz bands. The Enterprise Wireless Alliance asked the FCC to initiate the proceeding in 2009, the FCC said. The proposal “creates the opportunity” for the launch of 319 additional voice-grade channels for use by public safety, businesses and others who need “high-site Specialized Mobile Radio” licensees, the agency said. “It leverages technology advancements that have made high quality narrow-band voice transmission a reality, and reflects Commission efforts to improve spectral efficiency in heavily used bands,” the NPRM said. “Our proposal may reduce barriers to innovation and encourage investment in new technologies that will enable Private Land Mobile Radio (PLMR) licensees to use the spectrum more efficiently.” The agency said the current rules have been in place since the 1970s. The FCC previously sought comment on the EWA petition through a public notice. The NPRM asks about the potential for the change to cause interference issues and on interference protection rules. Comments will be due 45 days after Federal Register publication, replies 60 days after publication.

The American Bankers Association offered a compromise to the FCC on Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules on calls to cellphones. The agency is considering the group’s October petition (see 1410140162) asking that certain time-sensitive informational calls, which are placed with no charge to the called parties, be exempted from the TCPA restrictions. ABA offered the compromise in response to questions from FCC staff, it said in a filing posted by the FCC Friday in docket 02-278. ABA would accept a ruling that it must offer customers the option to opt out from automatic messages, the group said. But ABA proposes that a consumer’s opt-out request apply “only to the account and to the category of message in response to which the request was made,” it said. “For example, a consumer’s request not to receive future data security breach notifications would not foreclose the financial institution from sending future alerts concerning questionable transactions on that or other accounts held at the institution, which also would include notice of an opt-out mechanism applicable to those messages.”

Reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act has extreme, negative implications for the Internet outside the U.S., said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter in a letter Friday to the FCC. “Specifically, the Title II approach, which could insert the government into the regulation of the broadband Internet more robustly than ever before, could embolden despotic and unfriendly regimes to assume additional powers in their nations,” Spalter said. “There is also a belief among some in the Administration that there is a distinction between internet access and the content and services delivered over the internet, and that leaders in Russia and China, among others, will respect that distinction when they interpret American policy. Even for most Americans, there is no such distinction.”