Wireless and public safety officials updated the FCC Public Safety Bureau on their joint progress toward meeting new requirements for wireless 911 location accuracy reporting. The agency released its fourth report and order on the subject in February 2015. “Parties discussed the template the carriers intend to use when reporting live 9-1-1 call data on a quarterly basis or upon request of a Public Safety Answering Point, as required by the Order,” said a filing in docket 07-114. Representatives of AT&T Mobility, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, CTIA, APCO and the National Emergency Number Association attended.

The FCC Wireless Bureau is seeking comment on American Electric Power’s pursuit of a waiver to license seven business/industrial/land/transportation (B/ILT) channels in at Sugarcreek, Ohio. AEP needs a waiver because the channels, being vacated by Sprint, are available exclusively for licensing to public safety eligible entities until Feb. 10, 2018, said a Thursday notice. AEP is one of the largest U.S. utilities, with nearly 5.4 million customers in 11 states, the bureau said. “As a critical infrastructure industry entity, it will be eligible to apply for the requested channels only on February 10, 2018,” the bureau said. “AEP states that it needs the requested channels at the new location in order to fill in coverage gaps and increase spectrum capacity.” The utility said no other channels are available and “and no public safety eligible entities have requested channels vacated by Sprint in this area of Ohio to date.” Comments are due Oct. 24, replies Nov. 8.

Competitive carriers welcome the Wi-Fi Alliance’s release Wednesday of its LTE-unlicensed/Wi-Fi coexistence test plan (see 1609210069), said Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry Thursday. “Collaborative development and testing of unlicensed technologies is the best way to ensure both industry and consumers can maximize use of unlicensed spectrum while fostering permissionless innovation in unlicensed band,” Berry said in a news release. “Many competitive carriers welcome the test plan as a concrete step toward securing cutting-edge equipment keyed to operate over unlicensed spectrum, an increasingly important resource as carriers anticipate soaring data demand and spectrum scarcity issues.” Berry said CCA is still reviewing the plan.

Siemens agreed to pay a $175,000 fine for not disclosing two corporate felony convictions on a variety of FCC wireless license applications. The convictions stem from Siemens in 2008 pleading guilty to violating the accounting provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act through bribery of foreign government officials and from a 2007 guilty plea to a federal charge of obstruction of justice in a civil matter, said the Enforcement Bureau in its order issued Thursday. The failure to disclose "is particularly troubling because the underlying acts included misdeeds involving foreign telecommunications regulators," the bureau said, saying the consent decree includes that the two Siemens subsidiaries involved -- Siemens Corp. and Siemens Medical Solutions -- corrected the wireless application submissions on their own initiative and were fully cooperative with a bureau investigation afterward. Under the consent decree, the two also will develop and implement a compliance plan aimed at ensuring accurate future filing of wireless license applications, including a compliance manual and compliance training. Siemens didn't comment.

Passengers or crew who want to bring recalled Samsung Galaxy Note7s aboard commercial aircraft need to power down the devices and disconnect them from “any charging equipment,” the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said in a “safety advisory” notice published in Thursday’s Federal Register. Users also need to “disable all applications that could inadvertently activate the phone,” protect the Note7's power switch against “unintentional activation” and avoid packing the phone in checked baggage, said the notice, which PHMSA said it issued “in conjunction with” the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Sept. 15 recall (see 1609150069). Cargo shipments of recalled Note7s require a PHSMA permit, the notice said. PHSMA's safety advisory mirrored a "safety alert for operators" directive that the Federal Aviation Administration released the day after CPSC's recall notice.

Nielsen pressed the FCC to pause implementation of a mobile safe harbor for broadband provider compliance with net neutrality transparency rules. Nielsen said the commission should seek comment on the standards for safe harbor designations before allowing mobile providers to disclose Measuring Broadband America (MBA) network performance results as a safe harbor under the rules. "While safe harbors provide certainty and clarity to providers, the mobile [MBA] program may not be capable of providing the robust disclosures that the 2015 Open Internet Order requires and that consumers and edge providers deserve," said a Nielsen filing Wednesday in docket 14-28 on a meeting with Wireless Bureau Chief Jon Wilkins and others. Mobile broadband internet access providers can "disclose their results from the mobile MBA program as a sufficient disclosure of actual download and upload speeds, actual latency, and actual packet loss of a service" if the results satisfy sample size criteria and if the MBA program has provided certain network performance metrics, said May 19 guidance from the FCC's chief technologist, Office of General Counsel and Enforcement Bureau. Nielsen said: "Carriers may feel compelled to use the mobile MBA program as the basis of their required disclosures -- despite the flaws the record reflects -- to avoid the risk of severe enforcement action." CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association criticized the quality of the mobile MBA data (see 1606210022).

The $224.80 cost to build the iPhone 7 ($649) is $36.89 higher than IHS' analysis of the iPhone 6s performed in December, the analytics company reported. The bill of materials cost for the iPhone 7 is in line with IHS teardowns of recent high-end Samsung smartphones, said analyst Andrew Rassweiler. Expansion to 32 GB base storage density, from 16 GB, is only the second time Apple has stepped up base storage in the iPhone, he said. Overall memory cost “puts pressure on the bill of materials costs -- and therefore margins,” Rassweiler said. Apple eliminated segmented antenna bands, which means the company is pushing all radio-frequency paths to the ends of the phone, due to the aluminum unibody construction and design, said analyst Wayne Lam. “This design limitation may force Apple to go back to an all-glass design again so that they can fit in 4x4MIMO LTE antennas and more features like wireless charging in the next iPhone iteration.”

Liberty Global and CableLabs joined the MulteFire Alliance consortium, Liberty said in a news release Wednesday. MulteFire's main focus is ensuring future LTE mobile standards are compatible with shared and unlicensed spectrum, with its current push involving 3rd Generation Partnership Project-based mobile wireless standards, Liberty said. Other members include Qualcomm, Intel, Nokia and Ericsson, said the alliance website.

The FCC established a pleading cycle Wednesday on the proposed sale of a lower 700 MHz B-clock and lower 700 MHz E-block license from Club 42 to Bluesky. “Applicants maintain that the proposed transaction would provide Bluesky with additional spectrum that would enable it to expand coverage and deploy LTE services in Cellular Market Area 733 (American Samoa),” the FCC said. The deal is getting enhanced scrutiny because it would give Bluesky more than one-third of the currently suitable and available below-1-GHz spectrum in two of the five counties covered, the FCC said. Petitions to deny are due at the FCC Oct. 12, oppositions Oct. 19 and replies Oct. 26, said a public notice.

Consumers Union is satisfied that replacement Samsung Galaxy Note7s are safer than their originals, spokesman David Butler emailed us. CU’s affiliated Consumer Reports issued a public appeal Sept. 2 for an official Note7 recall, but Samsung Electronics America only publicly confirmed its “engagement” with the Consumer Product Safety Commission on a recall effort a week later (see 1609150069). CPSC released its recall notice five days after that, saying the action affected about a million Note7s sold in the U.S. from the early August launch through Sept. 15. About 500,000 Note7 replacements arrived in the U.S. for distribution to consumers starting Wednesday, Samsung said Tuesday (see 1609200067). “Part of why it is so important to involve the Consumer Product Safety Commission in a recall is because the agency must review and approve the remedy and fix,” Butler told us. “This is an important protection for consumers, and it provides them with confidence that their product will work as it should moving forward. We believe this is one process that serves consumers well.” Consumer Reports “immediately urged Samsung to initiate an official recall” through CPSC when “news broke that the phone was catching fire” because companies that work with the agency “and follow its process are doing the right thing for consumers,” Butler said. “While certainly there are aspects of the CPSC's statute that could be strengthened” to prod companies to immediately work through the commission process, “this current situation reinforces why companies should go through the CPSC in the first place,” he said. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Wednesday.