The FCC must include wireless in its upcoming broadband progress report, since wireless services are the services “consumers are purchasing in the marketplace,” CTIA said in comments filed Thursday at the FCC on the commission’s Tenth Broadband Progress Notice of Inquiry. “It is time for the Section 706 report to embrace mobile broadband and the extensive role it plans in Americans’ lives,” CTIA said. In analyzing mobile broadband speeds the FCC should focus on existing offerings, the group said. “Such an approach is particularly warranted in the competitive mobile wireless sector, where providers are aggressively vying to provide the fastest speeds and most extensive network coverage.” CTIA said smartphone speeds have increased eightfold in just four years. The group urged the agency to avoid setting “arbitrary latency or usage thresholds,” which could exclude wireless offerings “widely deployed in the market and demonstrably valued by consumers.” The comments (http://bit.ly/1lD9OOn) were filed in docket 14-126.
Pioneer will team with Treasure Data, a supplier of cloud-based data collection services, on a business alliance to develop telematics data services for the global automotive industry, the companies said Thursday. Using the Treasure Data cloud service, Pioneer will release new data and analytics-based services for automobile manufacturers and related businesses, including dealers, repair shops, insurance and rental car companies, they said. They also plan to “drive new research” on more effective use of automotive telematics data, they said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1lCfcRS).
Odin Mobile urged the FCC to approve its compliance plan, allowing it to start offering Lifeline service to blind Americans, in a filing posted by the FCC Thursday in docket 09-197. “Unfortunately, despite meetings, letters and the support of blind organizations ... Odin Mobile’s compliance plan, which was filed in December 2012, has not yet been approved,” the carrier said (http://bit.ly/1uCdShH).
In North America, LTE technology provided 33 percent of the total 391 million mobile connections for the first half of 2014, a 4G Americas report found. North America has 45 percent of all LTE connections worldwide; Asia Pacific has 36 percent; and Western Europe, more than 13 percent, it said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1r93FWz). Research for the report was done by Ovum, 4G Americas said. North America has an LTE penetration rate of nearly 36 percent, it said. Western Europe’s penetration rate is 8 percent, and Asia Pacific has a nearly 3 percent penetration rate, it said. Subscriber demand for mobile broadband data applications and services in the U.S. and Canada is driven in part by innovations in regulatory policy, new advanced LTE networks and significant smartphone penetration, 4G Americas said. Although LTE subscriptions remain low in Latin America, they're growing rapidly, with 4.8 million connections at the end of Q2 2014, “representing an annual increase of 900 percent at the end of the second quarter,” it said. Global LTE subscriptions grew 179 percent year-over-year from 2012 to 2013, it said. They're expected to grow 95 percent from 2013 to 2014 to reach 386 million subscriptions, it said.
Lab and field tests conducted by Google, Federated Wireless and Virginia Tech show that fixed exclusion zones are not needed in the 3.5 GHz band, they said in a filing posted Thursday in FCC docket 12-354. The FCC is looking at use of the band for sharing and small cells, but questions remain about whether proposed exclusion zones are too large (CD Aug 25 p1). The filing follows a Tuesday meeting with commission staff, it said (http://bit.ly/1qh3D30). “Wi-Fi can operate within close proximity of the incumbent naval radar system without substantial degradation in performance,” the filing said. It said tests “demonstrate that fixed exclusion zones are not needed to protect the radar from interference from commercial operations and that dynamic exclusion zones can be implemented with existing technology."
Several U.S. wireless carriers jumped on Samsung’s worldwide Galaxy Note 4 announcements Wednesday in hopes of winning new subscribers in the hotly competitive market. Sprint said it will be the only wireless carrier to offer the U.S. version of the Galaxy Note 4 and the Note Edge capable of running on its high-speed Sprint Spark network (http://on.mktw.net/1rMO8SP). Sprint also told customers it will offer the Gear VR virtual reality headset, also launched Wednesday, that’s designed to use the Galaxy Note 4 as the screen. US Cellular issued an email statement that it could confirm it will carry the Galaxy Note 4 in October and that it will follow up with details later. Verizon Wireless’s landing page led with the Galaxy Note 4 and Edge on Wednesday under the banner “The Next Big Thing is Coming Soon.” Verizon extended an invitation for customers to sign up for email updates on availability with the lure to “Be the first to get product, pre-order and launch details.” AT&T, meanwhile, didn’t show either of the new Samsung Notes, featuring instead on its launch page a free 8 GB iPhone 4s, with contract, along with a smattering of refurbished phones from other carriers. T-Mobile also pushed refurbished phones on its landing page. When we typed Note 4 into the search field, a chat box appeared asking if we needed help.
Data roaming shouldn’t be controversial, but the market by itself won’t fix problems, said T-Mobile Vice President-Federal Regulatory Affairs Kathleen Ham in a blog post (http://t-mo.co/1sZPPrL). In May, the carrier asked the FCC for a declaratory ruling providing guidance and “predictable” enforcement criteria for determining whether the terms of data roaming agreements meet the “commercially reasonable” standard adopted in the commission’s 2011 data roaming order (CD May 28 p9). Comments on the petition are in and the verdict was nearly unanimous, Ham said. “Except for AT&T and Verizon, of course, virtually every party weighing in at the FCC supports T-Mobile’s proposed benchmarks, as well as the other necessary minor clarifications,” she wrote Tuesday. “Consumers should not have to forgo T-Mobile’s ‘Un-carrier’ benefits simply because they work in or travel through coverage gaps or hard-to-build areas. Nor should local and regional carriers be unable to attract customers who aren’t content to stay always within their home markets."
U.S. wireless development could be “constrained and America’s mobile broadband leadership put at risk” over the next 10 years if carriers don’t have access to spectrum “of sufficient quantity or quality,” says a paper posted by consulting firm Deloitte Wednesday. “A decline in leadership would not only hurt the U.S. mobile industry and the U.S. mobile ecosystem, but could create a chilling effect on the broader U.S. economy, which increasingly relies on mobile services for both consumer and business use,” the paper argues (http://bit.ly/1w6TMxd). The paper says the U.S. is the world’s leader in deployment of LTE. U.S. companies also provide 96 percent of smartphone operating systems worldwide and 17 percent of smartphones. “It is clear that the mobile broadband industry is having favorable effects on America’s economy,” Deloitte said. “What is less clear is whether the United States is maintaining a leadership position in the face of global competition and how it may protect or strengthen its position for the coming decade.”
The FCC is scheduled to publish a notice in the Federal Register Thursday offering details on the partial economic area (PEA) licenses to be sold by the agency in the TV incentive auction (http://bit.ly/1rN0ryc). The notice provides a list of the 416 PEAs with their corresponding economic area and a list of counties in each PEA. The license size is a new one for the FCC. Some of the PEAs are large, with PEA 1 including New York City and covering a population of 25.2 million.
The FCC Wireless Bureau Wednesday sided with Geodesic Networks in a dispute with Auburn Data Systems over private operational fixed service (POFS) microwave point-to-point licenses at Naperville and Darien, both in Illinois. The bureau denied Auburn’s request that it reconsider grant of the licenses to Geodesic. Auburn had made a mutually exclusive application for the licenses. “We conclude that the Bureau did not prematurely grant Geodesic’s applications,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1oDIMkX). “Geodesic acceptably completed frequency coordination of its proposed operations, and it was not required to withdraw its applications once Auburn objected after the date Geodesic requested a response.”