The FCC Wireless Bureau will host its annual educational workshop June 7 on the environmental compliance and historic preservation review process mandated for the construction of wireless facilities, said a public notice Wednesday. “The session will include information relevant to the construction of all new communications towers and to the collocation of communications equipment on towers and other structures." The workshop will be 9 a.m.-4 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room.

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a Bristol-Meyers Squibb application to operate an industrial/business communications system using airport terminal use frequencies in New Jersey and Connecticut. The proximity of airports to the drugmaker's facilities means the company must have a waiver, the bureau said in a Wednesday public notice. The company “states that the proposed system will serve its plant operations in New Jersey and Connecticut for purposes of plant safety, plant operations, security, and environmental and human services; and that two of the plants have their own fire departments, which have mutual aid agreements with the county governments,” the PN said. “It states that no other frequencies are available for its proposed centralized trunked system.” Comments are due June 16, replies July 3.

Based on discussions with an antitrust expert in Washington, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche came away thinking a Sprint/T-Mobile combination would get fair treatment by federal regulators. “The expert we met indicated under the current Administration, merger review would likely move away from being a tool for shaping social policy to a review focused on the merits of each proposed transaction,” Fritzsche emailed investors. “The expert also indicated under prior Republican Administrations, anti-trust review tended to be most concerned with effects of horizontal mergers rather than vertical. In their view, the DOJ merger review would likely not prejudge outcomes on new transactions.”

Dish Network's low-, middle- and high-band spectrum holdings align well with what will be required for 5G, especially since 5G won't be launched everywhere but will be localized due to capacity constraints, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker wrote investors Tuesday. She said a 5G network build need not be expensive, with Dish potentially securing leases on existing towers. While those in the regulatory community seem to expect the FCC to win in the litigation between the agency and Dish's designated entities over AWS-3 bidding credits, some in the legal community disagree, she said. In her talks with regulatory and legal experts, they said any potential wireless/cable deal would be judged strictly on its own merits and the existing market and won't "be persuaded by past actions/rejections/opinions."

The Rural Wireless Association objected to CTIA and T-Mobile petitions for reconsideration seeking changes to the challenge process for phase 2 of the Mobility Fund (MFII) (see 1704270011). Don't "weaken the service requirements it adopted for MFII support recipients,” RWA said in an opposition in docket 10-208. T-Mobile requested that the commission revise the speed requirement from 10 Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink (10/1) to 5/1, with less rigorous latency requirements, RWA said. “MFII service requirements should not merely reflect the current network capabilities of nationwide carriers that, in some cases, have largely focused their coverage efforts in urban and suburban areas -- not in rural areas,” RWA said. “T-Mobile references data only from the four nationwide carriers. It does not include data from any of the large regional carriers or small, rural carriers -- many of which operate robust networks in places where the nationwide carriers do not.” CTIA, along with its five largest members, proposed the FCC do a one-time coverage data collection in lieu of using Form 477 data. “While appreciative of efforts by these carriers and CTIA, RWA is concerned that the Nationwide Carriers’ Proposal is unnecessarily overbroad, inefficient, and will delay MFII implementation,” the group said.

Global semiconductor revenue totaled $343.5 billion in 2016, a 2.6 percent increase from 2015, Gartner said in a Monday report. Combined revenue from the world’s top 25 semiconductor vendors increased 10.5 percent, a “significantly better performance than the overall industry's growth,” though most of that increase resulted from merger and acquisition activity, Gartner said: “The semiconductor industry rebounded in 2016, with a weak start to the year, characterized by inventory correction, giving way to strengthening demand and an improving pricing environment in the second half." Intel remained the world’s top semiconductor maker in 2016 with a 15.7 percent share, followed by Samsung with 11.7 percent, said the report. Qualcomm, with a 4.5 percent share, overtook SK hynix (formerly Hyundai Electronics) for third place, it said.

Nielsen will measure Twitter mobile campaigns of 23 new global markets beyond the U.S., providing independent assessment of advertising performance, Nielsen said in a Monday news release. "Using metrics that are comparable to those used for TV, Digital Ad Ratings equips advertisers, media agencies and publishers with trusted audience verification, allowing a clearer view into age and gender demographics, unique audience, reach, frequency and gross rating points ... for campaigns that run in Twitter's mobile app." New markets include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and the UK. Nielsen has been measuring Twitter campaigns in the U.S. with the tool for about a year.

Representatives of TracFone Wireless met with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to discuss the Lifeline program and whether it will be affected by the way the FCC would classify broadband as a result of the pending net neutrality rules. The preamble to the Telecom Act says it's “AN ACT To promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies,” TracFone said. “There is no more appropriate way to encourage and hasten the deployment of new technologies (and services utilizing those new technologies) than to expand the base of users of services which utilize those technologies,” TracFone told the Pai aides, said a filing in docket 17-108. TracFone said it met last week with senior Pai adviser Nick Degani and wireline aide Jay Schwarz.

Motorola Solutions representatives said they mostly support a draft report and order on the FCC’s Part 95 personal radio services rules teed up for a vote at Thursday’s meeting (see 1704270058). The FCC is right to allow the transmission of GPS location information and user-generated text messages over general mobile radio service frequencies, Motorola told Rachael Bender, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. The FCC would also allow automatic transmissions, rather than only manually triggered transmissions, the company said. Motorola would go even further. It “recommends that the Commission not limit these automatic transmissions to a single response containing location information but, rather, allow subsequent automatic responses, so as to increase the potential utility of the technology for safety-related applications,” said the filing in docket 10-19.

Flexible OLEDs are commercially available, and more are being incorporated into smartphones “with fixed curved features,” said Jeff Hawthorne, CEO of touch-screen components supplier UniPixel. Design work is underway “to improve the flexibility of OLED devices that will permit them to fold and bend multiple times.” Ability "to conform to certain shapes will be an important feature of next generation applications such as wearable devices, smartphones, and automotive applications among others,” the CEO said Thursday.