Squan, a telecom infrastructure service provider, said Wednesday it's acquiring the assets of Strong Tower Communications. Strong offers wireless macro services including new site builds, fiber delivery and testing, maintenance and program management to wireless operators, Squan said in a news release. “SQUAN has had a long-standing relationship with Strong,” said Squan CEO Leighton Carroll. “We respect both their leadership and their team’s ability to cover the Southeast and deliver with quality. This acquisition allows us to strengthen our capabilities, building upon our recent acquisition of Osmose Communications Services.” Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Cisco emphasized in a presentation to the FCC the importance of transmission of a dispatchable location for wireless 911 calls made from indoors. Cisco said a building owner must be involved in determining the dispatchable location. Outdoor location technologies don’t work well indoors, Cisco said. For example, the Cisco Washington office is at 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, North Building, Suite 900, the company said. But a call to 911 would be identified as coming from 98 53.599; N 0.216 W, elevation 35 meters, Cisco said. Cisco said it provided the information to David Furth, deputy chief of the FCC Public Safety Bureau. The filing was in docket 07-114.

Fitbit and the Center for Democracy and Technology released a report providing guidance to help other wearable manufacturers develop privacy practices for user data and ethical internal research and development procedures. CDT Deputy Director-Privacy and Data Michelle De Mooy, the report's co-author, said in a Wednesday news release that the data produced through wearable devices usually fall "outside of existing health privacy laws." While some companies such as Fitbit provide "clear and comprehensive privacy policies" in response to user concerns about data use and sharing, the report said "there is a dearth of guidance ... on appropriate and effective ways to protect consumers' health data." The report said sales of wearables are expected to grow to 172 million units in 2018, from 29 million units in 2014. Among the recommendations, the report says companies should preserve the "dignity" for both employees who offer personal data for experiments and users whose data are used throughout the R&D process. It also said companies should build "a culture of data stewardship" to help implement and sustain "privacy-aware and ethical internal research practices."

The FCC needs to carve out an exception to Section 15.201 of its rules for unlicensed wireless microphones “in light of the unique applications of microphones compared to other types of devices for which the rule was created,” Sennheiser said in a filing at the FCC. The wireless mic maker reported on a meeting with officials from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC approved new rules for wireless mics last August tied to the TV incentive auction and 600 MHz band repacking (see 1508060050). “Sennheiser discussed possible scenarios for modifying existing equipment to ensure operations would meet the new rules, and the equipment certification implications, using the clearing target band plan as an example,” Sennheiser said. The company said professional productions require interference protection from white space devices. “A pathway for this needs to exist for legitimate performing arts companies that do not meet the 50 microphone threshold for licensed operation,” it said. Sennheiser also said it proposed alternate frequencies in the 169-172 MHz band that could be used for wireless mics. "With regard to the 1.4 GHz band, Sennheiser noted that the 30 MHz spectrum limit was unexpected and not needed." the company said. "Use is limited to specific licensees and circumstances, and the frequency coordinator is well-situated to determine whether the number of channels requested by [a] licensee is necessary and appropriate." The filing was posted Wednesday in docket 12-268.

The FCC’s probe of zero rating is being watched across the world, and the agency should make clear that zero-rated practices are permissable, the Free State Foundation said in a Wednesday blog post. “Current FCC ‘fact-finding’ investigations concerning the lawfulness of certain zero-rated services are raising the specter of potential U.S. regulation, even though the FCC has refused to adopt a blanket prohibition of such services and the FCC Chairman previously praised T-Mobile's Binge On,” the group said. “Even the pendency of this ‘fact-finding’ mission creates unwelcome speculation domestically and internationally concerning harmful regulatory intervention, particularly since these inquiries tend to remain open for months if not years.” Other countries have started to prohibit zero-rated programs, including India’s "unfortunate" clamp down on Facebook's Free Basics program “that was designed to expand Internet usage in the country, which presently has a broadband penetration rate of only 22 percent of the population,” FSF said. “Because of U.S. influence abroad regarding telecom policy matters, the U.S. government must be doubly cautious before intervening with regulatory restraints that adversely impact the Internet subscribership and infrastructure deployment. … It is time for the U.S. government to lead by getting out of the way of a form of Internet innovation that benefits consumers, most certainly including low-income consumers.” FSF President Randolph May and Visiting Fellow Gregory Vogt wrote the post.

T-Mobile added more networks to its zero-rated Binge On service, the carrier said Tuesday. NBC, Univision and Qello Concerts are among the content providers now offered as part of Binge On, T-Mobile said in a news release. T-Mobile also added more providers to Music Freedom, its streaming music offering. “In the six months since we launched Binge On, the number of video providers streaming free without using your data has grown more than 240 percent,” CEO John Legere said. “We’ve got something for everyone, and customers never have to worry about getting slammed with ridiculous overage penalties.” T-Mobile customers have streamed more than 377 million hours of video on Binge On since the service started, T-Mobile said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the Corrections Technology Association the FCC has been too slow to help find a solution to combating contraband cellphones in correctional facilities. The FCC should make it easier for prisons and carriers to work together on the problem, but hasn’t acted, Pai said. “That’s a shame, and a disservice to the American public,” he said. Pai has raised the issue repeatedly, including at a field hearing in South Carolina in April (see 1604060058). “This issue isn’t an abstraction to me,” Pai said in his written remarks. “Over the past few months, I have heard directly from corrections officers who are on the front lines. I have visited with guards at prisons in Jackson, Georgia, in Bishopville, South Carolina, and in Leavenworth, Kansas. And later this week, I’ll be visiting a correctional facility in Boston.” The bottom line is “we have to prevent inmates from using contraband cellphones,” he said.

The FCC got eight applications from companies that want to be spectrum access system (SAS) and/or environmental sensing capability (ESC) operators in the 3.5 GHz shared band (see 1605160051), showing strong interest in the spectrum, FCC officials said Tuesday in a blog post. The SAS “builds on existing frequency coordination approaches by leveraging advanced computing to maximize the number of users that might be able to operate within a given area at a given time, making spectrum available where and when it’s needed, and enforcing protections and rights among use tiers,” said the post by Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, and Jon Wilkins, chief of the Wireless Bureau. The ESC “is the technological solution that will enable new commercial use in coastal areas of the United States (and some inland locations) while still protecting important federal radar operations,” they wrote. Both are important, they said. “We are extremely excited about the level of interest from prospective SAS Administrators and ESC operators,” the FCC officials said. “There is a significant and growing community of innovative technology developers and potential operators that are invested in the success of the 3.5 GHz band, the SAS and ESC-enabled sharing scheme, and the potential of these new sharing tools.”

Qualcomm representatives urged FCC flexibility on out-of-band emissions levels as the agency approves rules for high-frequency spectrum, said a filing in docket 14-177. Qualcomm officials said they spoke on the phone with officials from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and the Wireless Bureau. “Qualcomm encouraged the FCC to implement flexible technical rules to foster innovation and experimentation in order to enable successful mobile deployments in the millimeter wave bands,” the filing said.

Tier 1 suppliers are “losing their roles” as system innovators and developers in the nascent autonomous vehicle market because more OEMs are engaging directly with software developers and hardware and semiconductor vendors to make self-driving cars a commercial reality, ABI Research said in a Monday report. “It is becoming increasingly evident that no single Tier 1 supplier can deliver a complete autonomous driving system,” the firm said. “As a result, OEMs are increasingly engaging directly with component vendors, and becoming more aligned with product roadmaps from across the value chain.” Just last week, Nvidia estimated it’s working with about 80 companies on autonomous vehicles through its Drive PX platform (see 1605130032).