​After a record-setting e-commerce Black Friday at $5.03 billion, up 17 percent from a year ago, Monday was on track to become the biggest U.S. online shopping day ever, with Adobe Analytics reporting $840 million spent by 10 a.m. EST. Mobile traffic reached a high at 53 percent of overall visits, generating 40 percent of revenue, it said. Smartphones had a 21 percent jump in e-commerce traffic and a 41 percent sales spike. Mobile devices drove 54 percent of e-commerce visits Black Friday, 37 percent of revenue. Of the 115 million people who visited online retail sites on Thanksgiving, 61 percent did so from mobile devices, said comScore. Some 129 million consumers visited online retail sites on Black Friday, up 14 percent, with 104 million via mobile. The mobile user experience is improving, with conversion rates on all devices seeing double-digit growth on Black Friday, Adobe said.

The assumption that pricing in a four-player wireless market will be lower than in a three-player one is likely incorrect, at least in the short term, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors Monday. Without distraction of possible mergers, companies could focus more on profitability than on customer counts, he said. Moffett said Sprint clearly was hurt by dissolution of Sprint/T-Mobile talks, but the other three principal carriers could benefit if that company adopts a less promotional pricing posture as it tries to tackle debt service and network reinvestment. He said a four-player market is also good for Comcast and Charter Communications since it "creates a more hospitable dynamic" for their Verizon mobile virtual network operations.

Comments are due Jan. 23, with replies Feb. 22, on FCC proposals to allow more flexible fixed satellite service use of the 24.75-25.25 GHz band and to eliminate the cap on how much spectrum in the 28, 38 and 39 GHz bands a bidder can buy at auction, said the spectrum frontiers order posted Wednesday. The order was approved at Thursday's meeting (see 1711160026). A second Final NPRM also seeks comment on developing performance metrics for IoT, such as upper microwave flexible use systems (UMFUS) meeting their buildout requirements when they hit geographic area coverage of 25 percent of a license area. The agency proposal would add the 24.75-25.25 GHz band to rules for the 47.2-48.2 GHz band allowing for earth stations in the band to operate on a co-primary basis. In the latest spectrum frontiers order, the agency said it opted to use partial economic area geographic licensing for UMFUS operations in the 24 GHz band since that approach is consistent with existing rules for the 39 GHz band. Rather than license the 24 GHz band in three segments, it opted for 100 MHz channels as a means of maximizing efficiency of spectrum use. The agency also opted to license the 47 GHz band in five 200 MHz blocks. The agency in the order rejected increasing the earth station exclusion zones to 0.2 percent of the population of UMFUS license areas, saying there was no evidence of the need of such an ask. But it did adopt a three-tiered model for earth station siting in the 28 GHz band that it said was intended to give satellite more flexibility and clarified definitions of interstates, freeways and principal arterials with regard to limits on earth station sitings in mass transit areas. It declined to ax the numeric limit on three earth stations per license area in the 28 GHz bad but increased the number of permissible earth station locations in the 37.5-40 GHz band from three to 15 per partial economic area, as long as there are no more than three per county. The order also saw the agency adopt rules for unlicensed use on aircraft in the 57-71 GHz band under Part 15 of the agency's rules, which currently ban unlicensed use there.

As the industry awaits the market deployment of 5G, there’s “good activity still on 4G,” said Analog Devices CEO Vincent Roche on a Tuesday earnings call. With the “heavy activity on 4.5G,” and 5G in market “trials right now,” Roche thinks “the boundaries between 4.5G and 5G are blurring to some extent,” he said. “Indications” are strong the 5G market will “start to ramp” in late 2018 into 2019, and “peak to 2020,” he said. With the challenges of “getting 5G into play,” and with the increasing “demands for mobile data, we're still working hard on the classical problems of integration, design agility, power consumption,” he said.

No spectrum band other than 5.9 GHz, adjacent to the existing U-NII-3 band, is better suited to tackle the unlicensed spectrum crunch, NCTA representatives told an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, said a docket 13-49 ex parte filing posted Wednesday. NCTA said one plus of the 5.9 GHz band is that there are virtually no deployed commercial dedicated short-range communications operations there. At the meeting, NCTA also cited cable support for "reasonable changes" to the priority access licenses geographic area and license term that would aid investment in the 3.5 GHz band. It said as long as incumbent C-band users -- like satellites distributing TV content to cable operators -- can be fully protected, it supports the 5.925-7.125 GHz band being designated for unlicensed broadband use.

Black Friday Week electronics deals popped up Tuesday at Amazon and Verizon. Asus and Verizon announced the ZenFone V smartphone will be available for "free" online on Thanksgiving and at retail locations on Friday. New line activation is required, and customers have to pay $240 and then have credits applied to a phone bill over 24 months. Amazon was selling discount Samsung smart TVs.

The OLED market will reach $48.8 billion by 2023, up from $16.6 billion last year, driven by smartphone adoption and growing investments in technology and manufacturing plants, said ReportsnReports Tuesday. The Asia-Pacific market had the highest market share last year, while Apple is contributing to market growth in North America, it said, suggesting Apple may use OLED displays in upcoming iPads and laptops.

Sprint and Indiana shouldn’t get an indefinite delay to filing notices of appearance in their dispute over 800 MHz rebanding costs, the FCC Enforcement Bureau said Monday in docket 02-55 to Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel. The presiding judge should deny that request and “set a date certain in early January 2018 by which the parties should file their Notices of Appearance, whether filed prior to, or simultaneously with, any settlement agreement reached between the parties,” the bureau said. Sprint and Indiana sought delay because they settled their dispute but need time to document it and seek dismissal (see 1711200049).

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation to the State of Hawaii after a state-owned street sweeper operated a station at 121.9 MHz that interfered with an airport control tower at the Honolulu International Airport. Hawaii must submit a statement explaining the violation and remedial actions, said a Monday Daily Digest notice.

CTIA withdrew applications to be designated a spectrum access system (SAS) administrator and environmental sensing capability (EMC) operator. It's "a business decision" independent of its focus to make the 3.5 GHz band available for 5G and other uses, it said in a docket 15-319 filing posted Monday. CTIA said its interest in being an SAS administrator and EMC operator involved mainly ensuring its member companies had enough opportunity to use the 3.5 GHz band, but the number of companies seeking that designation points to a likely competitive SAS and ESC market. The band can be used for citizens broadband radio service.