Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 432 million units in Q4, up 7 percent over the year-ago quarter, Gartner said in a Wednesday report. Q4 saw Apple leapfrog past Samsung to secure the No. 1 global smartphone vendor position, Gartner said. It was the second straight quarter in which Samsung “has delivered falling quarterly smartphone sales," the researcher said. Samsung's smartphone sales declined 8 percent in Q4 and its share dropped by 2.9 percentage points year on year, it said.

Japan’s SoftBank is buying global investment firm Fortress for about $3.3 billion in cash, the companies said Wednesday in a news release. SoftBank is the parent of Sprint. Fortress will continue to be run by its principals (see item in the personals section of this issue).

Nokia Bell Labs and the University of Oulu, Finland, established a research and training center for wireless infrastructure for 5G and beyond, they said in a Wednesday announcement. An aim of the center is to train talents for the needs of a digital society and to develop future technologies for an era where networks have more capacity, energy efficiency, application awareness and built-in self-optimization, they said. Early research efforts will target new radio technologies for 5G, they said, and a project focusing on 5G radio frequency integrated circuit design, a 5G test network and system development activities has begun.

Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, met with Nese Guendelsberger, acting chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau, to make the group’s case for streamlined cell-siting rules. Earlier this month, CTIA President Meredith Baker made similar arguments to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1702030048). “CTIA highlighted the importance of sound policies at the federal, state, and local levels to facilitate the rapid and efficient deployment of wireless infrastructure to support 4G LTE and 5G networks,” said a filing in docket 16-421. It also encouraged the FCC to adopt the proposals in its recent small-cell public notice, the group said. “CTIA also discussed the importance of facilitating an adequate pipeline of additional spectrum to address consumers’ explosive demand for innovative wireless services,” the association said. “CTIA noted the success to date of the 600 MHz Incentive Auction and expressed its desire to continue to work with the Commission in partnership toward a speedy, workable post-auction repacking process.”

TracFone representatives told aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai some Lifeline providers are “misinterpreting the Commission's rule governing ‘port freezes’ of Lifeline customers in a manner which resulted in customers being tied to one provider for twelve months despite the fact that those providers were not providing their Lifeline customers with Broadband Internet Access Service.” The representatives met with Pai aides Nicholas Degani and Jay Schwartz, said a filing in docket 11-42. “We also discussed TracFone's longstanding commitment to preventing waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program, and reminded Messrs. Degani and Schwarz of several prior fraud prevention reforms proposed by TracFone which had been adopted by the Commission,” the filing said. “We shared Chairman Pai's continuing concern about program fraud and listed several other TracFone fraud prevention proposals which remain pending before the Commission.”

President Mark Crosby and others from Enterprise Wireless Alliance met with FCC Wireless Bureau staff to ask when the FCC might provide guidance on the future of industrial, business and commercial licensees using 470-512 MHz T-band spectrum, said a filing in 08-59 and other dockets. The EWA representatives also discussed a long list of other issues, the filing said: “EWA described its progress in working with the Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council and with prospective equipment manufacturers in anticipation of coordinating Medical Body Area Networks in the 2360-2390 MHz Band.” The association said the Land Mobile Communications Council filed at the FCC proposed interference contours for coordinating applications for 800 MHz interstitial channels. “EWA urged the FCC to adopt final rules in that proceeding as promptly as possible,” the filing said. The group requested a status update on its request for declaratory ruling that the Communications Act “allows only interconnected, commercial, mobile systems to be classified as providing a commercial mobile service (CMRS in the FCC rules) and regulated as common carriers.”

The Federal Aviation Administration's Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) approved two task group statements, one on roles and responsibilities of federal state and local governments in regulating and enforcing drone laws, and a second on the technological and regulatory means to allow drone operators access to airspace beyond what's now permitted, said the agency in a Wednesday news release. The FAA said DAC provided feedback on a third task group statement over funding to offset costs to support drone integration into the national airspace, but it hasn't been finalized. The 35-member committee, which includes academic, government, private sector and others, met for a second time Jan. 31 in Reno to discuss the issues. Headed by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, the group, which was formed to advise the FAA on drone integration into the airspace, will meet May 3 in Washington. Its inaugural meeting was in September (see 1609160003)

Nearly half of mobile phone users worldwide still use their devices only to make voice calls or send SMS text messages, said research by GSMA Intelligence, based on 2016 data from 56 global markets, the association said. South Korea, Qatar and the U.S. scored the highest on mobile engagement, according to the survey. Traditional SMS is still used more frequently than IP messaging in a number of mature markets, including France and the U.S., and millennials aren't necessarily more engaged mobile users than other age groups. “There are some markets, such as Myanmar, where smartphone ownership is relatively high but user engagement is low, due to digital illiteracy and a lack of locally relevant content,” the survey found. “There are several African countries with high mobile user engagement in financial services; for instance, in Kenya and Tanzania, around four in every five adult mobile phone owners use their phones for mobile money services.”

The Organizational Partners of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) said it released a new 5G logo for use on such products. “Implementers wishing to declare conformity to the 3GPP specifications may mark their equipment and documentation with the 5G logo,” 3GPP said in a release. “The Partners have registered the logo as a trademark for the benefit of the Membership.”

Facebook added immediate sound to News Feed videos, reformatted how they appear on mobile devices and is releasing a video app for TV, the company said in a Tuesday blog post. "Videos in News Feed have previously played silently -- you tap on a video to hear sound. As people watch more video on phones, they’ve come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on," wrote Engineering Manager Alex Li and Product Manager Dana Sittler. As users scroll through videos the sound fades in and out, but they can also disable the sound in their settings, they said. The staffers also said a larger format for vertical videos that "look better" is now available for mobile devices. They added that videos can also be minimized -- providing a "picture-in-picture view" that can be dragged to any corner of the screen -- as users scroll through the News Feed. Li and Sittler said a Facebook video app for TV will be available on the app stores for Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TV for now. Last year, users could stream Facebook videos on their TV. With the new app, they "can watch videos shared by friends or Pages you follow, top live videos from around the world, and recommended videos based on your interests," the employees wrote.