T-Mobile is going big on unlimited plans, unveiling the One plan Thursday. T-Mobile calls the offering its 12th “iconic Un-carrier move.” A family of four can get the service for $40 per line per month, T-Mobile said in a news release. The first line costs $70 a month, the second $50 a month and additional lines are $20 a month, up to eight lines. The plan offers unlimited data, text and voice. Video is streamed at what the carrier says is DVD quality, with an HD add on offered at $25 per month per line. T-Mobile wants to solve “pain points” and one of the biggest is data plans, CEO John Legere said on CNBC. “Today, I officially ended the era of data buckets and went all in on unlimited.”

The Competitive Carriers Association stressed the need for the FCC to get the definitions right for served and underserved as it takes up USF “reform” and potentially a second mobility fund, said a filing about a CCA meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. O’Rielly recently suggested the FCC use “population” as a metric for identifying areas in need of support, CCA said. “CCA encouraged the Commission to include road miles, farm land, and Federal lands as mobility is essential for next generation technology including 5G and the Internet of Things to flourish throughout the country,” said the filing in docket 10-208. “It is imperative that any methodology portray an accurate picture of the rural landscape, measuring which areas are served and which are not.”

In an era of what some say is creeping spectrum scarcity, the FCC released an NPRM Thursday designed to expand access to private land mobile radio (PLMR) spectrum. Among the key questions raised is whether the agency should amend its rules to allow 806-824/851-869 MHz band incumbents in a market a six-month period to apply for expansion band and guard band frequencies before the frequencies are made available to applicants for new systems. The Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) proposed the change, the FCC said. The commission also asked whether it should extend conditional licensing authority to applicants for site-based licenses in the 800 MHz frequencies and the 896-901/935-940 MHz bands. The FCC sought comment on whether to make available for PLMR use frequencies on the band edge between the industrial/business pool and either general mobile radio service or broadcast auxiliary service spectrum. “Traditionally, the PLMR services have provided for the private, internal communications needs of public safety entities, state and local government entities, large and small businesses, transportation providers, the medical community, and other diverse users of two-way radio systems,” the NPRM said. “PLMR licensees generally do not provide for-profit communications services. The Commission is committed to bringing about more efficient use of PLMR frequencies in order to alleviate congestion in this crowded spectrum, the demand for which continues to grow.” Comments deadlines are to be set by a pending notice in the Federal Register. “We are glad to see the FCC release this item as it proposes a number of productive spectrum policies,” said Mark Crosby, president of the Enterprise Wireless Alliance and an LMCC board member. “We also look forward to a healthy dialogue on the merits of providing spectrum priority to incumbent 800 MHz licensees, in particular business enterprise entities. The FCC has noted that expansion band spectrum is designated primarily for [Specialized Mobile Radio] stations. EWA will need to determine whether limiting business enterprise incumbents to B/ILT spectrum in the expansion band, without access to guard band spectrum, provides any meaningful opportunity for system expansion.” EWA is also concerned that “without an effective construction verification process, and reliance exclusively on self-certification, it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish parties with the intention and ability to actually provide service from those hoping to flip spectrum for monetary gain,” Crosby said. “The PLMR community has precious few spectrum resources. It is imperative that the rules promote its intensive utilization and deter speculation.”

Representatives of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority met with Edward Smith, an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and urged the commission to approve a waiver request by Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN) and its subsidiary SAL Spectrum so SAL can benefit from rural bidding credits in the TV incentive auction (see 1606030018). The authority said it has a partnership with ATN and the waiver would help it offer wireless service throughout the Navajo Nation. The authority filed on the meeting in docket 12-268.

The Future for Privacy Forum released guidelines to help companies that develop wearable devices and wellness apps follow "practical" privacy safeguards. In a Wednesday news release, FPF, which developed the guidance with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said companies need to incorporate the Fair Information Practice Principles -- a set of eight principles rooted in the 1974 Privacy Act -- to protect consumer-generated health and wellness data. FPF generally recommended companies provide consumers with choices about data sharing and usage, support interoperability with global privacy frameworks and app platform standards and "elevate data norms" for scientific research, privacy and security. The best practices guide was released in conjunction with a FPF mobile apps survey. It said 70 percent of the top health and fitness apps have a privacy policy, about 6 percent lower than top apps overall. Sixty-one percent of health and fitness apps are linked to the privacy policy from the app store listing page, about 10 percent lower than the top apps overall. In May, the Center for Democracy and Technology and Fitbit released a report that also outlined privacy best practices for the industry, which is expected to get even more guidance (see 1606100029 and 1606200027).

The FCC should refrain from clamping down on data caps or free data plans, two options for carriers that show the market at work, said a paper released Wednesday by CTIA, written by William Rogerson, a former FCC chief economist. Both practices are "efficient carrier responses to competitive pressures, technical realities, and consumer preferences, and should be trusted over the predictive judgements of regulators when it comes to maximizing consumer welfare,” Rogerson wrote. The wireless industry is competitive, with four national carriers, he said. Industry churn shows competition at work, he said. The average monthly industry churn rates from Q1 2012 to Q2 2015 were between 1.44 percent and 1.85 percent, he said. “This means that the average provider has lost between 17 percent and 22 percent of its customers each year over this time period.” Data caps “help manage congestion and ration scarce capacity and provide incentives for content providers and subscribers to use the network efficiently,” Rogerson said. Zero-rated data services “result in expanded access to broadband, particularly for lower income consumers, by making internet access more affordable,” he said. The FCC has been exploring whether it should prohibit some versions of zero-rated services as part of net neutrality rules (see 1606230065).

Apple’s smartphone share in China plummeted 32 percent year over year in Q2 to 8.6 million units, said an IDC report, while the top three vendors -- Huawei, Oppo and vivo – had gains of 15, 124 and 75 percent. The top three totaled 47 percent of the domestic market in Q2, compared with 43 percent in Q2 2015 and 45 percent Q2 2016 on “aggressive marketing” and brand-building efforts, said IDC. “The iPhone SE was not a hit in China, where consumers prefer larger screen-sized phones,” said IDC analyst Xiaohan Tay. Nearly 90 percent of phones shipped in China in Q2 had screen sizes 5 inches and above, Tay said. Apple fans are holding out for the next wave of larger iPhones in Q3 “which could likely give Apple a boost in China,” she said. Oppo and vivo thrived on the strength of their offline channels, where their shops and advertisements cover most of the third-to-fifth-tier cities, providing a convenient option for consumers to visit stores for after-sale service, said Tay. In the first- and second-tier cities, smartphone vendors continued to focus on sponsorships of key entertainment events to win consumers over, Tay said. Oppo and Huawei took different marketing routes in Q2, with Oppo promoting its camera selfie features and fast-charge technology with the tagline, “Charge for 5 minutes to be able to talk on the phone for 2 hours,” she said. Huawei focused on the P9, one of the top-selling products in the quarter, promoting its thinness and the quality of the camera’s Leica lens, IDC said. Oppo went the celebrity route, hiring brand ambassadors to launch its R9 series. “After vendors witnessed Oppo’s success with its R9, they also started riding on the trend of hiring celebrity endorsers to represent their brand and appeal more to the young crowd,” said Tay.

The Wireless Innovation Forum filed several documents at the FCC on its work on the 3.5 GHz shared band. The group said last week the first trial deployments of devices designed to operate in the spectrum are expected in the fall (see 1608120057). Among the documents is a road map by the forum’s Spectrum Sharing Committee Steering Group. The FCC charged the forum with getting industry to work together on sharing the band (see 1608010044). The filing was in docket 15-319.

Sprint cellular 911 service was "degraded" in Montgomery County, Maryland, said a release Tuesday from the county government, saying: "Sprint cellular service is affected throughout the area." Sprint hadn't given an estimated time for restoring service. A Sprint spokeswoman emailed: "Earlier this morning commercial power outages and a fire on L St. in DC caused some of our wireline services to be impacted in the DC Metro area which in turn has impacted 911 calls for some wireless customers. Specifically, some customers might receive a busy signal when calling 911. Customer safety and security is a top priority -- we’re working aggressively to resolve and service restoration is underway."

Kyocera added to its military-grade smartphone line a 4G model with a wide-view 13-megapixel 1080p action camera. The DuraForce Pro is targeted to business users and consumers, said a Kyocera news release. The phone is dust- and shockproof, and the camera can operate underwater up to 2 meters for 30 minutes, said the company. Additional features are a Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core processor, 5-inch display and push-to-talk functionality. Connectivity for the Android phone includes Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2, near-field communications, Miracast and USB 2.0, and the phone can be a mobile Wi-Fi hot spot for up to 10 devices, Kyocera said. AT&T will sell the phone but pricing hasn’t been announced.