IHS Markit sees the global smartphone installed base growing to more than 6 billion devices in use by 2020, from 4 billion in 2016, the research firm reported Wednesday. “Mobile innovations, new business models and mobile technologies are transforming every adjacent market as the mobile industry diversifies from the maturing smartphone market.” Globally, smartphones and tablets account for more than 60 percent of smart connected consumer devices, up from about 17 percent in 2008, it said. “Smart mobile devices will rapidly become universally adopted throughout the world, enabling innovative smart services, which will transform emerging economies,” it said. “Mobile devices and services are now the hub for people’s entertainment and business lives, as well as for communication. The smartphone has replaced the PC as the most important smart connected device.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau's recent report on zero rating is “sloppy, misleading, and somehow manages to miss the point that anti-competitive practices typically restrict -- and don't expand -- output,” said telecom consultant Jonathan Lee in a blog post. “It is only through a misleading application of the Commission's Open Internet Order that the [bureau] is able to make the focus of its analysis a ‘secondary’ market instead of the ‘primary market’ of mobile broadband Internet access -- the very market in which the FCC, in the Open Internet Order, said it would expect to see consumer benefits resulting from zero rated business plans!” The report said zero rated programs offered by AT&T and Verizon may be anticompetitive and raise net neutrality concerns (see 1701110070). The effect of sponsored data plans is “the availability of better consumer mobile broadband service -- with more online video, and not less,” Lee said. The report is "hopefully the last instance of Chairman Tom Wheeler's 'because-I-said-so' policy-making," Lee wrote. The FCC didn't comment Wednesday. Lee formerly worked for CompTel and has done work for AT&T.

Crown Castle said it completed its previously announced buy of FPL FiberNet Holdings and other subsidiaries of NextEra Energy, in a Tuesday news release. CCI announced the $1.5 billion cash deal in November, saying it would help its focus on small-cell deployment (see 1611010053). FiberNet owns or has rights to some 11,500 route miles of fiber installed or under construction in Florida and Texas, including 6,000 miles in top metropolitan markets, CCI said then.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau reminded wireless carriers, large and small, that they're required to file initial live 911 call data reports by Feb. 3. “Rules require nationwide … providers to file quarterly reports of their aggregate live 911 call location data for each location technology used within four geographic morphologies within six representative cities,” the Wednesday public notice said. Non-nationwide carriers must file reports every six months for areas they serve in or around the test cities. The test cities are Atlanta, Chicago, Denver/Front Range, Manhattan, Philadelphia, San Francisco and their surrounding areas.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved a 2017 revision of the “Standard Channel Nomenclature for Public Safety Interoperability Channels,” said APCO and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council Wednesday. The document “identifies common channel names for all FCC designated nationwide interoperability channels,” they said. It came out of work that started 10 years ago when NPSTC established a Common Channel Naming Task Group for interoperability use, the groups said. ANSI approved the initial standard in 2010. "The public safety community uses spectrum allocated by the FCC and NTIA in multiple bands that is replete with interoperability channels," the document said. "It is necessary to develop and employ a common set of channel names so that all responders to an incident know which channel to tune their radios to, as well as the band and primary use for the channel."

The FCC Wireless Bureau gave AT&T some of the relief it sought on performance requirements and construction deadlines for its 2.3 GHz wireless communications service C and D block licenses. “The unique context surrounding AT&T’s WCS C and D Block licenses, as well as the difficulty of applying conventional population- or fixed link-based construction metrics to the proposed hybrid nature of AT&T’s smart grid operation, justifies relief from our rules,” the bureau said in an order Wednesday. “We permit AT&T to offer a service consistent with WCS rules that makes productive use of spectrum that has remained underutilized for nearly 20 years, yet minimizes the risk of harmful interference to neighboring operations.” The FCC National Broadband Plan targeted the 2.3 GHz spectrum for wireless broadband. A 2013 settlement between AT&T and SiriusXM opened the door for the carrier to deploy LTE in the band (see 1210180070).

T-Mobile failed to take reasonable measures to protect confidentiality of customer data and failed to exercise reasonable oversight during a 2015 data breach (see 1510020051), the FCC Enforcement Bureau said in a document that was removed shortly after it was released so that the commission could make changes to correct an unspecified procedural error. No replacement was added by our deadline and the agency had no further comment. It was unclear how the changes would impact the final item. An FCC official said the document, a bureau-level item, was pulled because it was found to violate confidentiality rules and it may never be released in another form unless as a fully redacted draft. Those privacy-protection failures affected 15 million T-Mobile customers when a third party stole data collected by the carrier for credit checks, including customer names, Social Security numbers and address, the bureau said. In a Wednesday order, the bureau admonished T-Mobile “for willful and repeated violations” of Sections 222(a) and 201(b) of the Communications Act. “Though T-Mobile made a business choice to rely on its vendor, Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (Experian) to keep this information safe and secure, T-Mobile nonetheless failed the responsibility it owed to its customers to protect their data,” the bureau said. “Providers are responsible for their supply chain and while they can outsource functions, they cannot transfer accountability. If T-Mobile had engaged in reasonable oversight, it would have found that Experian’s security practices were far from reasonable.” T-Mobile failed to do basic oversight even after a 2013 data breach of Experian, the bureau said. The FCC couldn’t fine the carrier due to a one-year statute of limitations in the Communications Act, the bureau said. “Our determination not to impose a forfeiture in this case should not be construed as disregarding the seriousness of the violation or its impact on 15 million customers, and should not be construed to affect the authority of any other government agency to pursue an enforcement action against T-Mobile, or the rights of any T-Mobile customer to seek a remedy in the courts of law.” The company didn’t comment.

ZTE announced specs for its upcoming crowdfunded Hawkeye smartphone, saying in a Tuesday news release it’s “challenging the way devices are developed” by letting consumers decide throughout the design process what the end product will be. Planned next-generation functions for the phone include an adhesive case that allows users to affix the phone to a wall for hands-free operation and eye-tracking for scrolling through Web pages. Consumers chose the phone’s name and will choose final color and material, said ZTE USA CEO Lixin Cheng.

More than half of U.S. adults have cut the cord and live in cellphone-only homes, according to the latest GfK MRI Survey of the American Consumer released Tuesday. The 52 percent without a landline compares with 26 percent in 2010. The portion of senior citizens in cellphone-only households quadrupled in the past six years, to 23 percent, and millennials (born from 1977 to 1994) climbed to 71 percent from 47 percent. Adults of Hispanic/Latino origin are the most likely to have cut the cord -- at 67 percent. Asian-Americans at 54 percent, whites, 51 percent, and African-Americans, 50 percent, were close to the overall average.

Cellsite simulators (CS), or stingrays, as used by local law enforcement, likely violate the Communications Act, said Georgetown University Law School Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman in a Tuesday blog post. “Even though state and local authorities frequently use federal grants to purchase and deploy CS simulators, it would seem that these officials may not lawfully use them,” Schwartzman wrote in the Benton Foundation post. “Section 301 of the Communications Act prohibits the unauthorized use of any radio transmission device, including CS simulators. Section 301 does not apply to federal officials but since no FCC regulation allows operation of a CS simulator, its operation by state and local authorities (and, most certainly, any non-governmental user) [is] unlawful.” By all appearances, at least some CS simulators jam the signals of licensed carriers, he said: “There is no exception to this requirement for state and local government.”