T-Mobile named Mike Sievert, chief operating officer, to its board, raising the number of directors from 11 to 12, T-Mobile said Thursday. Sievert joined T-Mobile as chief marketing officer in 2012, moving to his current role three years later.

Mobile network capacity could struggle to keep up with demand in New York and other big world cities unless regulators make more spectrum available and ease deployment of small-cells infrastructure, GSMA reported Thursday. By 2025, 48 percent of traffic demand may go unserved in ultra-dense urban areas, it said. GSMA predicted mobile demand will grow by more than 50 percent in major cities by 2025 as 5G and IoT expand. Mobile operator spending would have to triple to meet demand, but that’s not sustainable under current conditions, it said. GSMA recommended releasing affordable spectrum, facilitating deployment of fronthaul and backhaul infrastructure, reducing siting costs, OK'ing network sharing agreements, streamlining small-cell deployment and harmonizing power density limits with internationally recommended limits.

Qualcomm directors urged shareholders in a Thursday letter to ignore proxy cards they receive from Broadcom and vote for re-election of the existing board. They cited Broadcom's lower takeover proposal for $79 per share, down from $82, saying it made "an inadequate proposal even worse despite the indisputable increase in value and certainty that Qualcomm stockholders will receive from the compelling and highly accretive acquisition of NXP." Broadcom refuses to engage with Qualcomm on price, said the board. Broadcom's current proposal "undervalues Qualcomm, fails to take into account the strategic and financial benefits of acquiring NXP, and continues to face a long and highly uncertain path to regulatory approvals," it said. An NXP acquisition would provide "significant strategic benefits" including increased revenue diversification, substantial expansion of serviceable addressable markets and more scale in high-growth automotive and IoT segments, it said. Qualcomm reached agreement with NXP Tuesday to increase its previously announced cash tender offer to buy all outstanding stock from $110 to $127.50 per share.

The FCC’s lab completed the first phase of testing as the commission considers sharing in the 5.9 GHz band between Wi-Fi and automotive safety systems, and is working on a comprehensive report on the results, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter to Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill. The agency will decide next steps in coordination with the Department of Transportation and NTIA, Pai said in the Feb. 7 letter, released Tuesday.

The FCC needs to move with care as it examines ways to fight contraband cellphones in correctional facilities, said the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We share the interest of the Commission in protecting the welfare of facility administrators, law enforcement authorities, and the general public,” the groups said. “Mandates for hard kill switches and proprietary technology will create new security vulnerabilities, and the lack of judicial review within the kill switch process will violate established protections for due process.” If "a device is misidentified as contraband and subsequently disabled, the owner of the device will be permanently deprived of their device without any warning or explanation,” said the filing in docket 13-111. Chairman Ajit Pai said recently he will appoint a task force to look at technological solutions (see 1802080035).

Sprint laid out for the FCC data on what it sees as the high cost of tribal historic reviews of new wireless facilities as the wide rollout of small cells begins. The analysis excludes collocations. Sprint’s average cost per tribal site review was $8,251 over the past two years, said a filing in docket 17-79. The carrier’s total cost for tribal review for all small cells “exceeded $23 million” over the two-year period “and continues to increase every day,” it said. “The actual costs vary widely across the country depending upon location,” the company said. “Hawaii and the West Coast are the cheapest, in the range of $500 to $2,000, while the Midwest is the most expensive. Review in Indianapolis exceeds $15,000 per site. The disparity in costs is more due to the number of tribes requesting review rather than the fee per tribe for each review.”

The FCC gave final approval to licenses for which Joseph Sofino was the top bidder in the AWS-3 auction, which ended more than three years ago. Sofino was one of the top 10 bidders in the auction, at nearly $13.5 million, though that’s a fraction of what was bid by big players led by AT&T. “Upon further review and examination, the application … has been found to be complete and in conformance with the Commission’s rules,” said a Wednesday Wireless Bureau notice. “The Commission has received full payment.”

The Free State Foundation urged commissioners to approve, then improve, rules implementing Section 7 of the Communications Act, which requires the FCC to respond to petitions or applications proposing new technologies and services within a year. An order is set for a vote at Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting (see 1802200058). Commissioners are expected to approve, though possibly with quibbles, FCC and industry officials said. No one commented on the draft rules in docket 18-22. “The Commission should consider using innovation-friendly procedures such as a deregulatory presumption and a deemed granted provision in connection with agency decisionmaking about whether new technology and service offerings are in the public interest,” blogged FSF President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Seth Cooper. FSF said the rules should make it easier for Section 7 applications to be approved, and “the Commission should also consider adopting a deemed granted provision to better ensure that the agency takes action on applications within the one-year time frame set forth in Section 7(b).” The draft proposes a new subpart in Part 1 setting forth “specific procedures and timetables for action on petitions or applications for section 7 consideration.” The draft proposes that to get Section 7 treatment, a petition or application “include a separate request that demonstrates that the new technology or service proposed is both technically feasible and commercially viable, not merely theoretical or speculative.” The rules offer factors for the FCC to evaluate in deciding whether proposed services or technologies would be considered “new.”

The FCC tentatively approved the first environmental sensing capability (ESC) operators for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band, moving launch of the CBRS sharing band another step closer to reality. The ESC operators allow sharing in coastal areas, protecting Navy radars. The four are: CommScope, Federated Wireless, Google and Key Bridge Wireless. All must now submit their systems for testing before final certification, the FCC said. “The ESC operators will manage a sensor system designed to detect the presence of federal incumbent radar transmissions in the 3550-3650 MHz portion of the 3.5 GHz Band and communicate that information to one or more Spectrum Access Systems (SAS) in accordance with the Commission’s rules,” said the notice by the Office of Engineering and Technology and the Wireless Bureau. “The ESC will enable more dynamic sharing between federal and non-federal users in the band, particularly in coastal areas.” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly last week said approval of the operators was imminent (see 1802130041). “Today’s important step gets us closer to permitting 3.5 GHz use in coastal areas where a huge population of Americans live and attracting necessary investment for equipment manufacturing and network deployment," O’Rielly said Wednesday. Ruckus Networks Wednesday announced release of 3.5 GHz LTE access points and associated cloud-based subscription services. The 3.5 GHz market is likely to be huge, Ruckus said. “The Ruckus LTE portfolio enables enterprises to deploy private LTE networks to ensure high quality-of-service (QoS) for critical business applications,” said a news release.

A Dec. 14 FCC order updating commercial mobile radio service regulations, primarily by removing sections 20.7 and 20.9 of the rules (see 1712140054), is to take effect March 23. Commissioners approved the order 4-1 over a dissent by Mignon Clyburn. The CMRS rule change should “harmonize and streamline the Commission’s regulations regarding the classification of commercial and private mobile radio services, primarily by removing provisions in the Commission’s rules that were outdated or unnecessary,” says Wednesday's Federal Register