The FCC should drop requirements that commercial mobile service providers file annual reports detailing revenue from international services, CTIA officials said in a meeting with Tom Sullivan, acting chief of the International Bureau, and other bureau officials. “These reports are no longer necessary in light of the robust competition in the market today,” the group said in a filing in docket 16-131. “The rule imposes costs on CMRS carriers by requiring them to maintain extensive network systems to track and record international revenue and traffic data.”

Verizon is beating its competitors on small-cell deployment, said Mike Haberman, vice president-network, in an interview with Techstination, posted by the carrier. The company is “hands down” the leader, Haberman said. “We have, quite frankly, the largest small-cell deployment in the country. We have been working behind the scenes.” Traditional towers (macrocells) “are sort of the umbrella network, and the small cells are underneath the umbrella network to provide the capacity needed,” he said. “We’ve been doing this for many years” with installations on utility poles and traffic lights, he said. “We’ve been a leader,” he said. “We’ve been aggressive.” Haberman also said Verizon introduced unlimited plans after a long period of preparation (see 1703060051). “We planned,” he said. “This was not a decision we decided to just do.” Some analysts said Verizon is pulling ahead on deployment of small wireless facilities. The firm's engineers appear to be “betting” on small cells and densification instead of spectrum, said Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson, in a recent note to investors. “It is here that they have begun to pull away from their competitors.”

An Android 7.1.1 update for the ZTE Axon 7 smartphone allows T-Mobile users to send and receive calls and text messages over Wi-Fi, said the company in a blog post Thursday. Other updates include an improved virtual reality experience and Google security patches, it said.

Verizon sought tweaks to the FCC contraband cellphone draft order, set for a vote at commissioners' March 23 meeting (see 1703020063). Verizon asked the FCC to change the rule to give carriers 10 days, rather than the five proposed, to submit a written response to a complaint from a contraband interdiction system (CIS) provider that the carrier didn't negotiate a lease in good faith. “We noted that the draft order states (at paragraph 62) that there have been no material problems with CMRS provider lease negotiations,” in a filing in docket 13-111. “We asked for an additional five days to allow carriers adequate time to investigate the allegations in the complaint and draft a response.” The carrier sought changes to a requirement on 911 calls. The FCC should hold CIS providers that lease spectrum solely responsible for making sure the calls aren't sent to public safety answering points when the PSAP informs the CIS provider it doesn't wish to receive 911 calls, Verizon said. The company said it met with Wireless Bureau staff and aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly. CTIA expressed general support for the draft order and Further NPRM. The group met with Erin McGrath, an aide to O’Rielly, said a filing Wednesday. But CTIA also raised a few concerns about the FNPRM. As part of the notice, the FCC should “address key questions regarding contraband interdiction solutions vendors’ eligibility, requirements for a qualifying request, procedures and timeframes for disabling devices, notification requirements,” CTIA said. The FCC should also “protect wireless carriers from liability in the event of inadvertent suspension or termination of a non-contraband device” and “clarify privacy obligations attendant to the disclosure of customer proprietary network information or other customer data to be shared among FCC approved law enforcement officials, corrections officials, and wireless providers.”

The FCC posted a few replies on petitions for reconsideration seeking to overturn ISP privacy rules. Replies were due in docket 16-106 Thursday. Among them was a filing by the Free State Foundation, a critic of the October privacy order. “The Commission lacks legal authority for its new privacy rules,” FSF commented. “And the regime of intrusive regulation it imposes on broadband Internet service providers but not on other online service providers that collect personal information is arbitrary and will restrict the choices that ISPs offer consumers and the information available to consumers.” The FCC should grant the recon petitions and "find that it is in the public interest to withdraw its new privacy rules in their entirety," FSF said. In initial comments, industry groups clashed with some consumer and public interest commenters over whether the FCC should keep the rules in place as approved under former Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1703060054).

The FCC announced a pleading cycle on AT&T’s proposal to fold into its portfolio all of FiberTower’s 24 and 39 GHz licenses. AT&T said in a Jan. 31 blog post it plans to buy all of closely held FiberTower (see 1702010035) and some of the high-frequency spectrum AT&T will need for 5G. “Pursuant to a stock purchase agreement, AT&T Mobility would acquire all of the outstanding stock of FiberTower Corporation, after which FiberTower Corporation would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T Mobility,” the public notice confirmed. “The Applicants assert that the proposed transaction would serve the public interest by facilitating AT&T’s adoption of 5G technology, which, they claim, would benefit consumers by enhancing existing services and enabling the provision of new ones,” the FCC said. “The Applicants further assert that the proposed transfer of control does not raise spectrum aggregation or competitive concerns.” The agency said by its calculations, AT&T would get 7.2-796.8 MHz of 39 GHz spectrum “in 3165 counties in all or parts of 727 Cellular Market Areas.” Petitions to deny are due March 30, oppositions April 6, replies April 13.

The Small Cell Forum released a document containing new specifications. “This document is an evolution of the femto application platform interface (FAPI) initiative to encourage competition and innovation between suppliers of platform hardware, platform software and application software by providing a common API around which suppliers of each component can compete,” the forum said in a release. “The specifications were extended to nFAPI (network functional application platform interface) following a virtualization study undertaken by Small Cell Forum, which examined different functional splits between virtual and physical network functions.”

Wipro opened an engineering center in Detroit for design, product engineering, digital customer-vehicle experiences, artificial intelligence and sensors-driven advanced vehicle data analytics, it announced Wednesday. The center will enable collaboration with the local auto industry, said Alex Beylin, Wipro global automotive business head.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless standards body agreed to accelerate work on standards for 5G, allowing carriers to use 5G for mobile services as early as 2018, said Andre Fuetsch, AT&T chief technology officer, in a blog post. The new schedule is a year earlier than expected and 47 global operators and vendors already have signed off on the new 3GPP proposal, Fuetsch said Tuesday. Launch in 2018 “won’t be a moment too soon,” he wrote. About 137 petabytes of data traffic cross AT&T’s network on an average business day, up 250,000 percent since 2007, he said. “Video now makes up more than half of our mobile data traffic,” Fuetsch said. “Video traffic grew over 75 percent and smartphones drove almost 75 percent of our data traffic in the last year alone. 5G will be a critical part of staying ahead of that demand. While there are many elements to this new technology, the big news here is that you can expect to see the first standards-based mobile 5G services in 2 years or less.”

NTIA is taking the "right approach" to advancing the IoT, as outlined in a green paper released in January, finding "no need" for specific regulation and identifying areas where government can promote the technology, said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a comment. In the paper, the agency, which extended a deadline for comments by three weeks until Monday, said the Department of Commerce can promote IoT by using the technology and highlighting its benefits, encourage global development of technical standards to ensure interoperability, enable spectrum allocation and examine how it can remove hurdles to IoT innovation and promote norms to protect users (see 1701120050). In its filing, the chamber said the green paper recognizes that an industry-led approach to develop "voluntary, consensus-based, and global standards" that will promote interoperability and open cross-border data flows is "fundamental," which should be supported by government. Flexible, risk-based solutions should underpin security, said the filing. It said the government should "support more robust, protected collaboration; promote consumer awareness and responsibility; and address liability concerns." The chamber also urged the government to harmonize regulations to modernize telecommunications infrastructure and expand broadband networks to advance autonomous vehicles and drones. It said Congress should pass the Digit Act (see 1701250072 and 1701240059), which will encourage collaboration among government and industry stakeholders.