Florida sought two more weeks to file comments on an FCC rulemaking to set procedures for state opt-out requests from FirstNet (see 1608260038). “Unfortunately, our efforts have been delayed due to key personnel being deployed for Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew since a large part of our team provides telecommunication and other response and recovery support before, during, and after state emergencies,” the state said in an emergency request Wednesday in docket 16-269. Comments are due Oct. 21, said a Sept. 21 Public Safety Bureau public notice.

Twelve companies, including AT&T and Ericsson, joined the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Alliance, it said Thursday in a news release. Other new members are Accelleran, Airspan Networks, American Tower, Baicells, CableLabs, ExteNet Systems, Nsight, Ranzure Networks, Rise Broadband and ZTE. The CBRS Alliance was launched in August as the FCC moves closer to opening the 3.5 GHz shared band. “For LTE-based solutions in the shared CBRS band to be successful, we need a wide range of ecosystem partners, infrastructure, equipment and network providers, to work together closely,” said Michael Peeters of Nokia, president of the alliance. “CBRS enables new kinds of deployments and business models, from LTE-based neutral hosts that can serve multiple service providers, to dedicated networks serving various entities such as enterprises or IoT verticals,” said Neville Meijers of Qualcomm Technologies, alliance chairman.

PdvWireless, a contender for the government contract to help build the FirstNet network, said in an SEC filing it's no longer in the running. The company received written notice Monday from the Department of the Interior contracting officer that its bid "is no longer being considered for the award,” the company said. FirstNet is using a government contracting process to select a winner, assisted by Interior. PdvWireless said in a June financial release that it “assembled a consortium of world-class companies with recognized expertise in the critical areas needed to build and operate a public safety broadband network” and submitted a bid for the FirstNet contract. Vice chairman of the wireless company is Morgan O’Brien, a founder of Nextel and former CEO of Cyren Call, which tried to build a national network for first responders before the creation of FirstNet. “The Company was competing with a number of other bidders for the FirstNet award, including groups that had significantly more resources than the Company,” said the SEC filing. “The Company, however, determined that participating in the FirstNet bidding process was in the best interests of its stockholders because of a number of potential benefits to the Company, regardless of the outcome. These benefits include the ability to directly utilize the business, technical and other information developed for the FirstNet proposal in planning and preparing for the broadband facilities the Company plans to deploy, building valuable relationships with the wireless and technology companies who participated in the Company’s FirstNet consortium, and raising the Company’s profile within the wireless industry and the technology community.” FirstNet officials hope to pick a team of companies to build the national network in November, with AT&T and Verizon among the likely contenders (see 1606300064).

Competitive mobile carriers, except Verizon and AT&T, have the most to lose if the FCC moves forward on draft ISP privacy rules, Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association said in a Wednesday blog post. “Consumers want more content, smarter and cheaper devices, and opportunity for savings,” but carriers have to compete with edge providers like Amazon and Facebook, which have broad access to consumer data under the FTC’s framework, he said. “Imagine a consumer wants to buy a new tablet and their competitive mobile carrier offers tablets at 20 percent off sticker price,” Berry wrote. “Google might know that particular consumer wants to buy a tablet, based on their web browsing history, and would accordingly place targeted ads in the customer’s search results. But under the FCC’s proposed rules, a carrier would likely have to get the consumer’s express permission to offer the same 20 percent tablet discount. This does not foster competition; in fact, it provides consumers with fewer choices.” Chairman Tom Wheeler’s mantra is “competition, competition, competition,” Berry said. “A more flexible privacy protection regime will benefit carriers and consumers alike, giving both what they want and need,” he said. “I fear the FCC has forgotten that ‘an informed consumer is the best customer’ and the FCC is making it difficult for consumers to be ‘informed.’”

The number of mobile banking logins exceeds internet banking logins in many markets, Juniper Research reported Tuesday. Banking app logins in the U.K. reached a record 11 million per day last year, compared with 4.3 million internet banking logins, it said, and 65 percent of mobile banking customers in the U.S. and the U.K. use an app for banking. Banks are becoming increasingly concerned their market position is being undermined by tech companies and pure-play vendors entering the market, enabled by technology and regulations, said the researcher. By 2017, banks in the EU will be required to open their application programming interfaces, resulting in innovative new data-based products that create attractive financial services for customers, Juniper said.

Chinese consumer tech and content giant LeEco, which is set to announce its formal entry into the U.S. market Wednesday (see 1609300064), will ship 25 million smartphones globally this year and become the 11th largest vendor worldwide in 2016, Strategy Analytics said in a Tuesday report. LeEco is the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone player, “due to cost-competitive hardware, improving distribution, and a growing ecosystem of media content,” said the report. LeEco shipped only 3.9 million smartphones in 2015, it said. “LeEco is in the process of building a multi-platform ecosystem, using smartphones, smart TVs and other hardware products to distribute its growing media portfolio,” said Strategy Analytics. “LeEco is sometimes called the Netflix of China, due to its compelling range of local Chinese video and other content. It remains to be seen whether LeEco can replicate its China success across the US, India or elsewhere, due to local tastes or copyright barriers, but LeEco is clearly growing at a very rapid rate and the vendor is an emerging threat to mass-market smartphone rivals such as Alcatel, Huawei and Samsung.”

Adoption of the iPhone 7, 7 Plus and iOS 10 is “strong” -- 1.3 percentage points higher than two weeks ago -- but was higher for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus two years ago, said a Localytics study Tuesday. IPhone 7 models have 5.1 percent of total iPhone market share, said Localytics, with 3.6 percent for iPhone 7s and 1.5 percent for the iPhone 7 Plus. The digital analytics/marketing firm attributed a lower share in China to resellers trying to smuggle phones outside of the country to sell them at a higher price. Adoption of iOS 10 has continued to increase since its Sept. 13 release, reaching 60 percent of eligible devices, it said.

Nothing in the commission’s review process for state proposals to opt out of FirstNet deployment "should exclude state opt-out plans that include both a radio access network and a core network,” Southern Linc representatives said in a meeting with FCC officials. Lawyers for the company met with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai, a filing in docket 16-269 said: “We also urged the Commission to adopt a rapid timeline for review, but provide opt-out states an opportunity to cure any defects in their initial proposals. An opportunity to cure is consistent with traditional notions of due process as well as Commission procedure.”

The FCC Public Safety Bureau approved a waiver for the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security to license an 800 MHz business/industrial/land transportation (B/ILT) channel for public safety communications. The operations proposed by the state don’t make it a B/ILT-eligible entity, so the department needs a waiver, the bureau said: “Stating that it has no other reasonable alternative, Tennessee seeks a waiver to license this B/ILT channel pair for statewide public safety use.” The Wireless Bureau also suspended the acceptance of applications for inter-category sharing of all private land mobile radio service frequencies in the 806-817/851-861 MHz bands starting in 1995, the order noted. “Under the circumstances presented, we are persuaded that grant of the Waiver Request to permit grant of the … application will not frustrate the underlying purpose of the inter-category sharing freeze -- protecting channels for public safety use,” the bureau said. “Indeed, Tennessee, as a public safety entity, is a member of the class whose interests the freeze is intended to protect.”

Three consumers in California, Nevada and Pennsylvania hit Samsung with the second known federal class-action complaint over the Galaxy Note7. In the first complaint, an Illinois resident alleged Samsung’s negligence caused him to suffer serious burns when his recharging Note7 exploded overnight (see 1610030052). Plaintiffs in the new complaint (in Pacer), filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, make no such injury claims. Instead, they allege they had to wait three weeks or more for replacement Note7s to arrive in stores, while continuing to incur “monthly device and plan charges associated with their Note7s” that Samsung didn't offer to reimburse as part of the recall. Samsung, in its Oct. 13 expanded recall notice, offered a variety of financial consolations to Note7 owners, including up to a $100 “bill credit” from a carrier or retailer to those who exchange their Note7 for another Samsung smartphone as a "token of appreciation" for their loyalty and inconvenience. Samsung decided Oct. 11 to permanently scrap the Note7 for fear even the batteries in its replacement phones could be prone to overheating or fire (see 1610110042). Samsung doesn't comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman emailed us Tuesday on the latest complaint.