Social media and video streaming drove T-Mobile wireless data traffic at NRG Stadium in Houston on Super Bowl Sunday, Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray said in a Monday blog post. Social media apps drove one-third of data usage, with users sending 3,000 social posts per minute, the CTO said. And 36 percent of traffic was video streaming from YouTube and Netflix, he said. Data traffic spiked 15 percent immediately after the game-winning touchdown by the New England Patriots, Ray said. Total data traffic at the game beat last year’s total before halftime, he said.

Cordova Wireless sought temporary waiver of FCC indoor location accuracy 911 rules. In a Friday petition in docket 07-114, Cordova said the public safety answering point (PSAP) it serves can’t yet receive or use the indoor location data: “It would be economically burdensome and futile to require Cordova to comply with the location accuracy rules until the only PSAP that Cordova serves is actually capable of receiving location data.”

Broadcom, Qualcomm and NCTA told the FCC the best solution for sharing of the 5.9 GHz band is to rechannelize it, moving dedicated short range communications systems to just the upper 30 MHz. The band is critical for Wi-Fi, the industry letter said. “The 5.9 GHz band is the Commission’s single best near-term opportunity to make additional unlicensed spectrum available for broadband services,” they said. “No other band both holds such promise for consumers or presents a better environment for sharing with incumbent users. This is the case because the 5.9 GHz band is positioned immediately adjacent to an existing core band used by Wi-Fi.” Also, commercial DSRC deployment has yet to begin, the filing said. Earlier last week, Toyota said rechannelization would compromise DSRC (see 1702020018). The new filing was posted Friday in docket 13-49.

CTIA invited vendors of location-accuracy technologies to participate in Stage 3 of its 911 location technologies test bed. The first two stages “focused on verifying the indoor performance of existing or commercially available 9-1-1 location technologies,” the group said in a Friday news release. “Stage 3 will now focus on location technologies in a variety of production-ready stages. The availability of Stage 3 demonstrates the wireless industry and public safety community’s commitment to considering how new technologies can continue to enhance the capabilities of our nation’s 9-1-1 system.” Stage 3 testing is to occur in the San Francisco and Atlanta areas later this year, the association said: “All test results are confidential to the test participants, but participants are encouraged to share summary results with wireless industry and public safety stakeholders who can evaluate the performance of various technologies.”

AT&T wireless workers in 36 states plan to vote on whether to authorize a strike, Communications Workers of America said Friday. Authorizing a strike would allow union leaders the option to declare one. The contract expires Feb. 11 for 21,000 wireless retail, call center and technical workers, CWA said. “AT&T is underestimating their workers’ anger, frustration, and commitment to winning a fair contract,” said CWA District 1 Vice President Dennis Trainor in a news release. “The company is trying to eliminate opportunities for working families and we won’t stand for it -- we can and must win a fair contract. It’s time AT&T gets serious about protecting good, middle-class jobs for wireless workers and the latest proposals don’t even begin to scratch the surface.” AT&T is confident it will reach an agreement, a company spokesman said. “A strike vote is not an unexpected step in negotiations of this sort and is often a part of the process. We’re continuing to bargain with the union and we’re committed to reaching a fair agreement that will allow us to continue to provide solid union-represented careers with excellent wages and benefits.” Tensions between AT&T and its California and Nevada union workers already were running high amid disagreements negotiating a new contract in that region (see 1612190050). About 120 DirecTV technicians in Sacramento walked off the job last week in response to the company firing one of their own (see 1702010027).

FirstNet updated the FCC with a list of public safety systems operating in band 14, the band FirstNet will use to build its network. Three of the public safety licensees on the list -- Kalamazoo County, Michigan; Monroe County, Michigan; and the Tennessee Department of Corrections -- were eligible for federal grants to move their systems out of the band but chose not to apply, FirstNet said. In August, the network awarded grants of as much as $14 million to help public safety systems relocate (see 1608180057). FirstNet awarded $14 million to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, $7.3 million to Virginia State Police, $3.8 million to the Arkansas State Police and $1.6 million to the Massachusetts State Police. The Department of Defense, Honolulu County; the Marshall, Michigan, Police Department; Stamford, Connecticut, Fire Department; and Post Falls, Idaho, Police Department each got less than $45,000. FirstNet filed a report in docket 12-94.

CTIA President Meredith Baker met Tuesday with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to urge the agency to make it easier for companies to deploy small cells. In August, the FCC finalized a revised national programmatic agreement streamlining the approval process for small cells (see 1608080061) and distributed antenna systems. “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. “CTIA encouraged the Commission to adopt the proposals in its recently-released Small Cell Public Notice that would streamline local review of wireless infrastructure applications, clarify actions that prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting wireless service, and ensure that compensation for use of public rights of way is cost-based, fair, and reasonable." Initial comments are due Monday on a Dec. 22 notice.

Representatives of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon told the FCC they will file their initial 911 location accuracy live call data reports Friday, as required. But they said the first quarterly reports will use the format submitted by CTIA to the FCC on Dec. 15 and not the latest form from the agency. CTIA relayed the industry position in a filing in docket 07-114. On Jan. 18 the Wireless Bureau released a new filing format “directing wireless carriers to ‘break out live call data for each Test City or relevant service area’ and include additional data not included in the carrier format,” the letter said. “The nationwide carriers will work diligently and in good faith to modify the IT and analytic systems designed around the carrier format to align with the new FCC Form for future reports.” The agency mandated the filing of the reports in an order approved by commissioners in January 2015 (see 1501290066).

Toyota raised concerns about the testing process on sharing between anti-crash, dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) systems being deployed by automakers and Wi-Fi in the 5.9 GHz band. The FCC has been testing 5.9 GHz Wi-Fi devices since the summer with an eye toward sharing (see 1608010044). Toyota officials filed in docket 13-49 on meeting with Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp and others from OET. There are “clear limitations to the testing that can be accomplished with the re-channelization prototype devices that have been supplied,” the company said. “The re-channelization devices submitted for testing do not fully support the re-channelization proposal because they do not implement any sharing mechanism for the portion of the band that is expected to be shared between U-NII [unlicensed] and DSRC. As a result, while the devices can be used to test cross-channel interference from U-NII to DSRC, they cannot be used to test co-channel U-NII-to-DSRC interference.” DSRC would suffer if the 5.9 GHz band is rechannelized and safety systems restricted to the upper 30 MHz, as some Wi-Fi advocates urge, Toyota said. “DSRC communications in the overlapping portion of the band would be required to use 20 MHz channels, which has been shown to be inferior to 10 MHz channels for DSRC services.” A Wi-Fi advocate countered the Toyota arguments. “The auto industry continues to suggest that the use of DSRC for safety-of-life will stretch across all of the seven 10 MHz channels,” said Michael Calabrese, director of New America’s Wireless Future Project. “In reality, even if the Trump administration decides to impose this $10 billion vehicle-to-vehicle DSRC mandate on consumers, the Department of Transportation’s rule requires that all time-critical V2V safety signaling use a single, dedicated 10 MHz channel. Automakers hope to use the remainder of the band for display advertising and other commercial use that can readily share with Wi-Fi. The only issue is whether the safety channel should be moved to exclusive-use spectrum at the top of the band, which would promote both safety and shared use.”

Apple rode the success of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus to retake the top global smartphone share from Samsung in Q4, IDC reported Wednesday. Vendors shipped a total of 428.5 million smartphones in the holiday quarter, a 6.9 percent increase from 2015's Q4, it said. For the full year, vendors shipped 1.47 billion smartphones, the highest year of shipments on record, yet up only 2.3 percent from 2015, it said. "This was a year that brought us the first down year for iPhone, yet Apple closed out the holiday quarter by surpassing Samsung for the top spot in the smartphone industry.” Apple shipped 78.3 million iPhones in Q4, a 4.7 percent increase from Q4 a year earlier, IDC said. Samsung’s global smartphone shipments declined 5.2 percent in Q4 to 77.5 million, it said: Apple took an 18.3 percent global share of the smartphone market to Samsung’s 18.1 percent. In Q4 a year earlier, Samsung controlled 20.4 percent of the smartphone market to Apple’s 18.7 percent, it said.