The Rural Wireless Association said it still has concerns about an order by the FCC Wireless Bureau granting a waiver to the Alaska Wireless Network of both the interim and final geographic coverage requirements for a single 700 MHz license covering the entire state. “The waiver approves an ambitious new set of built-out levels that are tailored to the unique circumstances of rural Alaska and are consistent with the purpose of default 700 MHz nationwide build-out requirements,” AWN said in a July 21 opposition to the RWA application for review. RWA said in its reply that AWN never addresses its complaint: “AWN’s argument that the Commission’s buildout requirements hinder rather than encourage expansion of service to rural areas is not based on any empirical evidence. AWN’s statement clearly demonstrates that the obstacle it faced in extending service to cover the 80 percent of the population that it desired to serve was not that the Commission’s buildout rules hinder rather than encourage the provision of service to rural areas as both the Bureau and AWN have claimed, but rather the fact that the license was allowed to lie fallow for more than seven years.” The comments were posted in docket 16-402.

Michigan opted in to FirstNet, declining Thursday to pursue alternative radio-access-network plans that the state collected in April through a request for proposals. It's the first of 14 states with an outstanding RFP or request for information that decided to opt in; it’s the tenth state or territory overall to accept the AT&T plan. Rivada Networks remains the biggest challenger on lobbying states to opt out and build their own networks (see 1708010068). Lt. Gov. Brian Calley (R) said the effort will also enhance broadband availability in rural Michigan. “Much of the state of Michigan is rural in nature and presents many communication challenges,” said State Police Director Kriste Kibbey Etue. The Michigan Constitution allows the lieutenant governor to act as governor when the governor is out of state.

Apple shares closed up 4.7 percent at $157.14 Wednesday after a better-than-expected earnings report Tuesday. Revenue in the quarter ended July 1 jumped 7 percent over the 2016 quarter to $45.4 billion on strength in the company’s services business, iPhone 7 and 7 Plus sales, and gains across all categories, said CEO Tim Cook on the earnings call. Profit rose 12 percent to $8.72 billion. IPhone sales reached 41 million units, and the company reduced inventory by 3.3 million, its lowest point in two-and-a-half years, said Cook. Average iPhone selling prices reached $606 in Q3, up from $595 a year ago, which Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri attributed to the iPhone 7 Plus, which had a higher percentage of the iPhone mix than the flagship Plus model in the year-ago quarter. On Apple’s China business, Cook said the iPhone was “relatively flat” as the services business grew “extremely strongly."

Two researchers found a growing Q2 global smartphone market, they reported Wednesday, but IDC reported a 1.3 percent decline in shipments over the year-ago quarter. Canalys showed shipment gains of nearly 4 percent to 340 million and Strategy Analytics reported a 6 percent bump to 360 million units, but IDC recorded 341.6 million Q2 smartphone shipments vs. 346.1 million, excluding OEM sales. Samsung maintained the top spot across the board, at around 79 million units. It “continued to recover from last year’s Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco,” said SA’s Neil Mawston. Apple, meanwhile, "must justify any significant price increases with tangible improvements,” said Canalys' Tim Coulling. No. 2 Apple, with 12 percent market share vs. 11.7 percent, shipped 41 million phones, said IDC. "Closing in fast on Apple" is No. 3 Huawei, which posted strong gains to reach 10.7 percent market share on 38.4 million shipments, said SA.

Mid-band spectrum is critical to 5G as is a pending FCC notice of inquiry, Peter Pitsch, executive director-federal relations, blogged Wednesday. Mid-band spectrum is both well suited to 5G and available in the sizable quantities needed, Pitsch wrote. Commissioners are to vote Thursday on the NOI and Intel is part of a group of companies that released a proposal for mid-band spectrum (see 1707240061). “Over the past year, the FCC freed additional spectrum in both low and high bands to support a myriad of new connected devices and applications that soon will be enabled by 5G," Pitsch wrote. "However, more needs to done to make spectrum in the mid-bands available for flexible licensed and unlicensed broadband use.”

The FCC needs to finalize rules for the Mobility Fund II program and move it “forward with deliberate speed,” Joan Marsh, AT&T senior vice president-federal regulatory, blogged Wednesday. Commissioners are expected to approve the item Thursday (see 1707310063). The current program disburses almost $500 million per year and was to be phased out by 2016, Marsh wrote: “The FCC has found that more than $300 million/year of this support goes to wireless carriers to provide service in areas where one or more competitors are also providing service without subsidy. In other words, those dollars are not supporting any incremental service to rural consumers.” A fix is needed and the FCC gets the balance right in the item, she said: Inaction “simply delays the promise of mobile broadband service to communities without such service today.”

Components supplier Integrated Device Technology thinks wireless charging will move “from early adopters to mainstream usage starting late this calendar year, and that this trend continues throughout 2018,” said CEO Greg Waters on a Monday earnings call. “Wireless charging is probably kind of in an in-between phase right now, but we do see a meaningfully increase” in consumer adoption coming later in 2017, he said.

Cisco completed the $610 million cash-and-assumed-equity-awards buy of Viptela (see 1705010064), a software-defined wide-area network (WAN) provider, Cisco said. Part of the buyer's "Network Intuitive vision," the acquisition comes amid "massive transformations in enterprise networking" as waves of software defined networking move into local area networks and WANs, Senior Vice President-Product Management Scott Harrell blogged Tuesday. The FTC recently cleared the deal (see 1707180003).

The FCC should act expeditiously on rules designed to speed up wireless siting, Competitive Carriers Association officials said in a meeting with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “The record depicts an undisputed immediate need for updated and streamlined rules,” said a filing in docket 17-79. CCA raised concerns about fees charged by tribes for historical review of projects and site monitoring. “Tribal fees are rising, and are typically assessed before any Historic Property is suspected or found,” CCA said. “Tribal Nations have not explained these rising fees, and allowing unlimited siting fees stands contrary to the Commission’s ultimate goal: ubiquitous broadband deployment.”

Representatives of CTIA and member companies met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff to discuss the progress toward standards on enhanced wireless emergency alerts, CTIA said. Among the topics was “technical feasibility of geo-targeting and, relatedly, geo-fencing, as well as whether software responsible for such processing would be an application or a pre-installed functionality, and how such software would be updated,” said an ex parte filing in docket 15-91. “Parties also discussed network congestion issues associated with mobile-software based geo-fencing.” Another topic was rules for informing subscribers on the alerts. Industry representatives “noted the delicate balance between providing potential customers with point-of-sale information relating to WEA, and avoiding customer fatigue by limiting such disclosures to the most essential information,” CTIA said. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, U.S. Cellular and Qualcomm were represented, the association said.