A $200 million award from Apple will support Corning’s R&D, capital equipment needs and glass processing at the company’s Harrodsburg, Kentucky, manufacturing plant, Apple said in a Friday announcement. The companies’ partnership began 10 years ago with development of Corning’s Gorilla Glass for the original iPhone, Apple said. The contribution is the first to come from Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund, created to support innovation among American producers.

FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly said CTIA made the right move in establishing www.stolenphonechecker.org so consumers more easily can check if a used or refurbished smartphone was reported stolen or lost (see 1705110043). “Kudos to wireless industry for launch of consumer tool to help stop smartphone thefts,” Clyburn tweeted. O’Rielly said in a statement that it's “an example of the private sector addressing a need in a thoughtful and effective way.”

Free Press signaled it would fight any Sprint/T-Mobile combination. Bloomberg News reported Friday that Sprint and parent SoftBank have informally contacted T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom about a deal. The companies aren’t commenting. “No one but [President] Donald Trump’s pals on Wall Street wants to see this competition-killing, investment-killing and job-killing merger,” Free Press President Craig Aaron said in a news release. “There is no rational justification for this deal. It’s motivated by pure greed and a desire to reach deeper into people’s wallets.” Consumers win when telecom combinations falter, Aaron said. “In recent years, T-Mobile and Sprint have each exerted important competitive pressures on the wireless market, pushing each other and AT&T and Verizon to do things they otherwise wouldn’t -- like offering uncapped data plans again and dropping burdensome contract requirements.”

CTIA released www.stolenphonechecker.org, so consumers more easily can check if a used or refurbished smartphone has been reported stolen or lost. “The new website is designed to provide peace of mind to consumers who are increasingly buying used or refurbished smartphones,” said a news release. “It will also benefit law enforcement by allowing police departments to quickly verify the status of a recovered phone.” Consumers, police and resellers can use the site to verify the status of a recovered phone by entering a device's unique ID at the website. The ID can be located in the phone’s device settings or on packaging. If a device has been reported as stolen or lost in the database, it will show a red status, and note that wireless service may be blocked from the device, the group said.

Energous’ WattUp RF wireless charging technology is “ready for commercial deployment,” said CEO Steve Rizzone on an earnings call Wednesday. The company’s wireless charging sends contained energy via radio waves to paired devices containing matching receivers, which convert the radio waves into DC power that charges a receiver’s battery. WattUp uses Bluetooth Low Energy for communication and the 5.850 GHz-5.875 GHz band for power transmission. It expects to receive the first orders for “significant quantities” of chipsets before the end of Q2, with initial orders through Dialog Semiconductor, which bought a $10 million stake in November. Mass production of WattUp-enabled consumer products by customers will begin in Q3, with FCC certification processes for the first WattUp-enabled near-field and mid-field consumer products to coincide with the first customer shipments late this year, Rizzone said. The Q1 net loss was $12.5 million on revenue of about $575,000, the company reported. Shares closed up 14 percent on Thursday at $14.91.

The Rural Wireless Association is asking the FCC to adopt challenge rules for Mobility Fund Phase II (MF-II) that encourage maximum participation in the fund, said RWA General Counsel Caressa Bennet in a statement. “Today, RWA submitted Reply Comments in response to the Mobility Fund Phase II [Further] NPRM urging the Commission to adopt a challenge process that does not unduly burden Challenged Carriers or Challengers, and that is administratively efficient,” Bennet said. “Rather than burdening all carriers by requiring the resubmission of coverage data everywhere, or burdening Challengers by requiring the submission of extensive unsubsidized coverage data in a too-short time period, the RWA Proposal walks a fine line by requiring additional information where necessary without being over inclusive and inefficient.” RWA weighed in against a CTIA proposal for the challenge process (see [Ref 1704270011]). The FCC decided to seek comment in an FNPRM as part of a February order approved 3-0 by commissioners launching the MF-II (see 1702230042).

The FCC should compel FirstNet to release network policies to states at least 90 days before delivery of state plans, said officials from the Colorado Office of Information Technology and FirstNet Colorado in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 16-269. “Because it is the Commission’s role in the Spectrum Act to evaluate alternative state plans against the network policies, the Commission necessarily has the power to demand that FirstNet divulge those same network policies in a manner that will provide the Commission the time necessary to carry out its statutorily required obligations.” The FCC needs the policies so it can develop the process for deciding whether states seeking to opt out have met requirements, the state officials said. States fear that they won’t have access to network policies “until well after it is possible to develop an alternative state plan that complies with such policies,” the officials said. “It is unclear what the network policies even consist of other than that opt-out states will have to comply with them.” If they're on interoperability, they're key to the network design of any state alternative plan, the state officials said. Public availability of network policies benefits states and the FCC, they said. “This availability will serve both the Commission’s role in ensuring network interoperability as well as carrying out Congress’s intent to give states a real choice to either accept FirstNet created state plans or create alternative state plans.”

Gains in Fossil’s connected watch business didn't offset other weaknesses, executives said on a Q1 call Tuesday after U.S. markets closed. Its wearables business is up 400 percent year on year, representing 7 percent of Q1 revenue. “We're now in a growing wrist device market that is 30 percent-plus bigger than that stand-alone traditional watch market,” said CEO Kosta Kartsotis. “Growth in the overall wrist device market is being fueled by connected watches." Kartsotis cited IDC forecasting that the $19 billion smartwatch business in 2016 will grow to $35 billion by 2020. Greg McKelvey, chief strategy and digital officer, said wearables and traditional watches are colliding, creating “additional channels,” new customers and a larger addressable market. Fossil stock closed down 20 percent Wednesday at $14.44.

Sennheiser, which announced last month it's working on a binaural recording headset for iPhones with Lightning connectors, is at work designing a digital interface for Android phones based on a USB connector, CEO Andreas Sennheiser told us in London Tuesday at a preview of a Pink Floyd exhibition featuring the company's Ambeo technology. Apple’s Lightning connector interfaces digitally with the digital-to-analog converter built into the Sennheiser Ambeo headphones, but no such solution is currently available for Android phones with an analog 3.5mm jack.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japan-based SoftBank, said T-Mobile remains Sprint’s "first priority" as a merger partner. SoftBank owns a controlling interest in Sprint and Son spoke on an earnings call Wednesday. His remarks were reported by Nikkei Asian Review. "If any other favorable options come up” for Sprint, “I will consider them with an open mind,” Son said. He said he was pleased with the signals from the Trump administration. "The previous administration turned a deaf ear,” he said. “The U.S. was a difficult place to do business and I felt a great deal of dissatisfaction."