One in 10 smartphones shipped worldwide this year will include wireless charging capability, said an IHS report Monday. The global wireless charging transmitter market more than doubled in 2015 to 53 million transmitter shipments, said the report, while 2.8 billion wireless charging transmitters and receivers are forecast to ship in 2025. Apple Watch contributed significantly to the more than 23 million wearable-device transmitters shipped in 2015, said analyst Vicky Yussuff. Samsung heavily promoted wireless charging transmitters in the Galaxy S6 last year, offering two-for-one and free transmitters for consumers who signed up for Samsung Pay, a strategy it carried over to the Galaxy S7 smartphone earlier this year.

Mobile device users installed nearly 156 billion mobile apps worldwide in 2015, generating $34.2 billion in direct, non-advertising revenue for their developers and marketers, IDC said in a Monday report. The research firm predicts more than 210 billion apps will be installed in 2020, generating nearly $57 billion in direct revenue. Though IDC sees the apps market continuing to grow through the end of the decade, the rate of growth will slow in terms of total installations and the revenue they generate, it said. “This trend, which is largely driven by market maturation, will see annual install growth fall into the single digits over the second half of the forecast.” Mobile app installation volumes will still experience a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3 percent, it said. “Direct revenue from mobile applications will also experience slower growth by the end of the forecast period,” though the five-year CAGR will remain in the double digits at 10.6 percent, it said. Apple's App Store "ecosystem" captured nearly 58 percent of global direct app revenue in 2015, an increase of 36 percent year over year, it said. But Apple's share of global app installation volume was only 15 percent, down nearly 8 percent year over year, it said. “The sheer volume of Android-based devices in use ensures a greater overall number of installs through Google Play,” which captured about 60 percent of install volume and nearly 36 percent of direct revenue in 2015, it said: “Although Google Play enjoyed solid year-over-year growth in both downloads and direct revenues, the gains were somewhat lower than in previous years.”

Sprint added shared wireless plans for business customers, the company said in a news release Monday. The lowest tier Business Share More plan includes 20 GB to share among 10 business lines, while the highest provides 500 GB to share among an unlimited number of lines. The plans support Sprint’s LTE Plus network and include unlimited talk and text. Devices can be leased, bought with 24 monthly installments or discounted with a two-year contract.

Shentel said it completed its acquisition of nTelos Wireless, a carrier serving parts of Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. “Shentel will accelerate network upgrades in the current nTelos region throughout this year and next, which will give customers more coverage in more places, stronger signals and faster downloads," said Christopher French, Shentel CEO, in a Monday news release. Shentel committed to spend $350 million “as part of the expansion of the network and plan to add hundreds of additional coverage sites to provide an enhanced and more complete network for our customers,” French said. The companies announced the deal in August (see 1508100063) and it was approved by the FCC in April (see 1604150046).

Two major automaker groups asked the FCC to rethink parts of its March order relaxing the out-of-band emission (OOBE) limits for the operation of U-NII-3 (5.725-5.85 GHz) band devices (see 1603020064). The Association of Global Automakers and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers filed the joint recon petition, warning of interference to dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) systems aimed at preventing accidents on the road. The higher limits would increase “by an unacceptable factor of 7,038” the level of OOBE that can occur in the 5.9 GHz band, the automakers said. “The public, as well as the members of the Global Automakers and the Alliance, will be severely harmed by the FCC’s decision,” the groups said. In the order, the FCC “decided to make accommodations in the U-NII-3 rules for all manufacturers of U-NII-3 equipment, stating that its rule changes ‘will still provide a level of interference protection to adjacent band services,’” the petition said. “However, this ‘level’ of interference protection was not evaluated or examined at all with regard to adjacent band DSRC operations, thereby undermining the automotive industry’s multi-year and multi-million dollar investment.” The petition was posted Monday in docket 13-49. Wi-Fi proponents hailed the higher emissions limits when the order was released.

Consumers are the winners when carriers launch zero-rated data services, said CTIA President Meredith Baker Friday on Medium. Baker cited T-Mobile’s Binge On and Verizon’s FreeBee services, both of which the FCC is reviewing as possibly violating 2015 net neutrality rules (see 1601280056). “What all free data services have in common is simple: Consumers can save money and enjoy their wireless experience even more,” Baker wrote. “While wireless consumers are clear winners with free data services, Internet startups and small content companies benefit too. A recent Harris Poll survey found that 84 percent of consumers would consider using new apps and content that are included in these types of offerings.”

FirstNet made public its draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for the East region and plans a series of public meetings to receive comment, FirstNet said in Friday's Federal Register. The PEIS covers Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. “All comments received by the public and any interested stakeholders will be evaluated and considered by FirstNet during the preparation of the Final PEIS,” the authority said. “Once a PEIS is completed and a Record of Decision (ROD) is signed, FirstNet will evaluate site-specific documentation, as network design is developed, to determine if the proposed project has been adequately evaluated in the PEIS or warrants a Categorical Exclusion, an Environmental Assessment, or an Environmental Impact Statement.” Comments are due on the draft PEIS by July 6, and the public safety network plans meetings in each of the region's 13 states and the District of Columbia. The first meeting is 4 p.m. May 16 in Washington, at 200 I St. SE., first floor.

The launch of service in the 3.5 GHz shared band could take several more years, even though the FCC recently wrapped up final rules for the band (see 1604280062), said Laura Stefani, wireless and technology lawyer at Fletcher Heald, Friday in a blog post. The FCC approved the initial 3.5 GHz NPRM in 2012 (see 1212130044), putting in place an experimental three-tiered access and sharing model made up of federal and nonfederal incumbents, priority access licenses (PALs) and general authorized access (GAA) users. Sharing is to be coordinated by spectrum access system administrators. “So when can you expect to fire up your shiny new 3.5 GHz equipment?” Stefani wrote. “Probably not for another few years, unfortunately. Though testing of equipment is being done by the likes of" Ericsson and Qualcomm, "the FCC still must approve at least one SAS database administrator as well as the Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) system that will be used to provide information to the SAS to protect federal radar incumbents," wrote Stefani. "The Commission will need to auction the PALs, although GAA license-by-rule use may occur before then.”

Qualcomm received FCC permission to test LTE-unlicensed working with T-Mobile, in a grant of special temporary authority. Earlier, Qualcomm got FCC permission to do similar tests with Verizon (see 1601290064). "Qualcomm continues to prove fair coexistence between LTE-U and Wi-Fi through our own testing, through third-parties and through our work with other stakeholders within the LTE and Wi-Fi industries,” said Dean Brenner, Qualcomm senior vice president-government affairs. “Qualcomm ... will continue to work with the FCC and other stakeholders to ensure LTE-U will fairly coexist with Wi-Fi. We will also continue to collaborate with the Wi-Fi Alliance to develop a coexistence test plan, and utilize that plan for joint lab and field testing.”

CTIA urged the Food and Drug Administration to work with hearing aid manufacturers and the FCC to provide information to consumers about hearing aid compatibility (HAC) ratings. In comments Friday at the FDA, CTIA said the ratings are critical to helping consumers find compatible wireless devices and hearing aids. While wireless carriers and manufacturers “take significant efforts” to provide this information about wireless devices, “consumers will continue to face challenges in understanding how to pair a hearing aid device with their wireless handset without a clearer understanding of the other half of the HAC rating system -- the HAC rating of a hearing aid device, it said.