Coral Wireless asked the FCC to overturn a decision by the Internal Audit Division of the Universal Service Administrative Company to recover universal service support from Coral based on a finding that a certain number of the reported lines were not revenue producing. The carrier reported on a series of meetings at the FCC in filings in docket 05-337, posted by the FCC Monday. The Wireline Bureau rejected Coral’s arguments. Coral could not have been providing telecom services with the lines at issue “because Coral's terms and conditions permitted, but did not require,” Coral to reroute nonemergency calls to Coral's customer care center during the 60-day period preceding disconnection for non-payment, the filing said. The ruling could create “unintended harm,” Coral said. “Unless the Order is reversed, any service provider will be able to evade regulation as a common carrier merely by including in its terms and conditions a provision that gives the provider the right, but not the obligation, to route calls to locations other than the dialed telephone number.”
The automotive industry doesn’t need to “reinvent security credentialing” or create an “isolated” automotive network as it moves forward on a vehicle-to-vehicle security credential management system (SCMS), CTIA said in comments filed Monday in response to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration request for information. Many of the issues faced in that industry are similar to those raised by a “growing M2M [machine-to-machine] communications ecosystem that supports the Internet of Things,” CTIA said. “M2M communications systems are faced with the same challenges to establish secure lines of communications and authenticate devices. Creating a separate, isolated network dedicated to automotive vehicles and associated infrastructure would likely result in dis-economies of scale in connection with production costs, deployment, and interoperability.”
Samsung’s share of the worldwide smartphone market fell to 24 percent in Q3, from 32 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to Gartner Group. Samsung’s deepest decline was in feature phones, shipment of which decreased by 10.8 percent year over year. Demand for Samsung’s smartphones weakened mostly in Western Europe and Asia, Gartner said, with smartphone sales tumbling 29 percent in China, its biggest market. Emerging markets continued to drive smartphone sales in Q3, with Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa showing growth of 50 percent year over year, Gartner said. The U.S. led mature markets with 20 percent growth in the quarter, fueled by Apple’s debut of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, said the report. Smartphone sales in Western Europe dropped 5 percent, the third consecutive quarterly decline of the year, it said. Following 26 percent year-over-year growth for Apple worldwide in Q3, Gartner expects record sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the holiday quarter, “but we should not underestimate the Chinese vendors and local brands,” said Annette Zimmermann, Gartner research director. Chinese smartphone companies will continue efforts to penetrate overseas emerging markets, while prepaid markets in Europe and low-cost LTE phones will also offer “key opportunities” for Chinese brands, she said. Huawei moved into the No. 3 position worldwide among smartphone vendors, although fewer than 1 million units separate the number three, four and five players, all Chinese brands, Gartner said. Xiaomi cracked the top five for the first time on a 336 percent sales increase, driven by a “strong performance in China” where it became the leading brand, Gartner said. Lenovo filled out the top five for the quarter with market share of 5 percent. Gartner expects 2014 sales of smartphones to reach 1.2 billion units worldwide.
The FCC sought comment Friday on its Technological Advisory Council’s Dec. 4 report on mobile device theft prevention. The Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology sought general comment on recommendations in the report, “with a particular emphasis on recommendations for industry that can be implemented in the near term to provide timely benefits to consumers,” the agency said. Mobile device theft has been a top focus for the TAC and for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1403110031). Comments are due Jan. 30, replies Feb. 17.
CTIA called “misconceived” Neustar’s claims that Ericsson’s connections to the association influenced its support for Ericsson subsidiary Telcordia's selection as the next local number portability administrator, said an ex parte filing. Neustar wrote the FCC Tuesday in another ex parte filing, saying Ericsson President Angel Ruiz is secretary of CTIA’s board. "CTIA’s advocacy reflects the point of view of the largest wireless carriers who have strategic or commercial reasons” for Telcordia’s selection, Neustar wrote. CTIA responded that it’s “no secret that CTIA is a trade association that represents its members’ interests -- including twenty-six carriers that serve more than 96 percent of the nation’s wireless customers. ... Neustar evidently does not think its own advocacy should be discounted simply because of its obvious personal stake in this proceeding.”
Shipments of smartphones with near-field communications capability built in will jump at a 55.8 percent compound annual growth rate through 2019, said a report available for sale from the research firm TechNavio. NFC technology "has revolutionized the ways in which people access and use data and information," the report said. "NFC-enabled devices can be used for applications such as mobile payment, loyalty programs, interactive advertising, ID authentication, and transit fare collection."
Proponents of an industry road map for improving location accuracy for wireless calls made indoors explained details of the proposal at a meeting at the FCC, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 07-114. The plan was unveiled last month by AT&T, APCO, CTIA, the National Emergency Number Association, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (see 1411190064). The meeting focused on the “formation of a test bed, dispatchable location commitments, improvements in and deployments of horizontal location technologies, steps to advance vertical location technologies providing back-up solutions for indoor calls, and metrics and deliverables,” the filing said. The industry representatives met with officials from the FCC's Disability Rights Office and the Public Safety Bureau, the filing said. AARP said in a filing that the agency should move forward on its own proposal for location accuracy rules laid out in a February NPRM (see 1402210038). "The carriers’ agreement does not provide accountability or assurance that its plan would be effective," AARP said. "The FCC’s proposed rules provide specific, fair and measurable requirements for indoor location accuracy." AT&T fired a shot at the Find Me 911 coalition and TruePosition over their arguments against the road map. “TruePosition and its fully-controlled FindMe911 coalition is at it again, spreading misinformation and ill-informed criticisms of the APCO, NENA [National Emergency Number Association], and Wireless Industry Roadmap for Improving Location Accuracy,” said Joe Marx, assistant vice president-federal regulatory, in a blog post Friday. He countered arguments that the industry proposal is based on untested technologies. “Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies have been in use for years in commercial location services, and are central to the current wireless ecosystem in ways that will drive strong incentives for further innovation and lasting relevance for years to come,” he said. “The phone companies seem to think if they repeat what is not true often enough, people will ignore the actual wording of the plan they proposed,” said Jamie Barnett, lawyer at Venable who represents the coalition. “Here is what is absolutely true: before the roadmap, the phone companies were against the FCC’s proposed rules because it would hold them accountable. Now they are for the roadmap because it will allow the phone companies to escape accountability for location accuracy. No one should be fooled by this Trojan Horse.” The road map does propose use of untested technologies, relying on creation of a "National Emergency Address Database,” he said. “Instead of enforceable and concrete benchmarks to locate callers, the phone company plan is based on process-oriented steps like ‘tests,’ ‘demonstrations,’ and ‘studies,’ coupled with nice-sounding goals for the deployment of specific, minimal-cost handset technologies that have failed in the past to provide accurate indoor locations.”
The FCC announced a pleading cycle on a spectrum swap between AT&T and U.S. Cellular. Under the deal, AT&T would receive 10 to 20 MHz of broadband PCS spectrum in 104 counties in 32 cellular market areas, the FCC said. U.S. Cellular would get 10 to 15 MHz of broadband PCS spectrum in 18 counties in seven CMAs. “As a result of the proposed inter-market exchanges, AT&T would hold 76 to 185 MHz of spectrum in total, and U.S. Cellular would hold 34 to 91 MHz of spectrum in total, post-transaction, in the counties implicated by the proposed transaction,” the FCC said. Petitions to deny are due Jan. 5, oppositions Jan. 15 and replies Jan. 23.
The FCC established a pleading cycle Thursday on AT&T’s proposed buy of two lower 700 MHz C block licenses in the Hubbard, Minnesota, cellular market area from Consolidated Telephone Co. “Our preliminary review indicates that, as a result of the proposed transaction, AT&T would acquire 12 MHz of Lower 700 MHz C Block spectrum in this CMA,” the FCC said. It said that post-transaction, AT&T would hold 135 MHz of spectrum in the CMA, including 55 MHz of spectrum below-1-GHz. Petitions to deny are due Jan. 20; oppositions Jan. 30; replies Feb. 6.
A New York City project to offer free Wi-Fi hotspots at converted payphone sites shows the dangers of “virtual redlining,” Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld told FCC officials, said a filing in docket 14-28. “The decision by commercial providers to limit prioritized service to wealthier communities and to avoid communities of color because of racial stereotypes, is a very real concern,” Feld said. The Wi-Fi hotspots are supported by advertisers, and “advertisers prefer wealthier eyes,” he said. “As a result, all of the 2,500-plus locations in Manhattan are high speed, giving the borough with 20 percent of the city’s population fully 65 percent of all the fast kiosks. Meanwhile, the Bronx will get speedy Wi-Fi at 361 kiosks -- just 6 percent of the fast Wi-Fi stations in the city.” Feld said the New York example points to the dangers of paid prioritization. “If carriers decide to offer commercial businesses the opportunity to reduce cost by limiting prioritization to specific markets on the basis of zip code, census block, or other geographic demarcation, we can anticipate that -- as with the NY City public wifi experience -- businesses will avail themselves of this opportunity,” he said. The New York City Franchise and Concession Review Committee recently held a hearing on the CityBridge consortium’s plan to install a Wi-Fi hot spot system in place at up to 10,000 obsolete payphone booth sites across the city (see 1412040056).