5G Americas members have a commercial interest in ensuring the security of their services and products as 5G services are deployed, said Chris Pearson, president of 5G Americas, in meetings with FCC officials. “5G standards are in the very early stages of development,” the group said in a filing in docket 14-177. “5G Americas agreed with the Commission that support for security must be a fundamental component in the design of any new network architecture and protocols developed for mobile wireless services in all generations of mobile broadband technologies including when using millimeter wave spectrum for 5G.” The group said security has been a design component in third and fourth generations of mobile broadband technologies. “5G Americas appreciates the Commission’s concern that as new wireless applications are used by vertical sectors such as smart grids, telemedicine, industrial control, public safety, and automotive, those sectors will have strict security requirements that are mission critical,” the group said. 5G Americas noted that because of these requirements, a number of standards development organizations and industry bodies are developing security features specific to each sector. Representatives of AT&T, Cisco, Intel, Qualcomm, Sprint and T-Mobile USA also participated in the meetings, the filing said. They met with staff from the Public Safety and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology.

AT&T has been focused on the IoT since 2008, though what the IoT is exactly is still not widely understood, said Chris Penrose, AT&T senior vice president-IoT, in a blog post. “When I tell people I head up our Internet of Things division, they often look at me with a little bit of confusion. Isn’t the Internet full of things?” Penrose said that if people don’t know what the IoT is, they soon will. “The future of IoT will enable more things to take care of themselves,” he said. “One example is a machine that can let a foreman know that it needs a new part, or a car alerting a driver that the battery is low on juice. This capability frees up our time to focus on the big picture and where we’re going next.” Also last week, Verizon said that the IoT is now mainstream (see 1604050030).

Crown Castle acquired Tower Development Corp, for $461 million cash Friday, Crown said in a news release. TDC, part of Berkshire Partners, owns and operates 336 towers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico with an average of two tenants per tower. Crown Castle said it expects the deal to add between $25 million and $27 million to site rental gross margin in the first full year of the acquisition. Crown funded the acquisition with available cash, including cash on hand, cash from borrowings under its revolving credit facility and cash from the sale of about 3.5 million net shares of common stock at an average price of $85.52 per share.

T-Mobile unveiled a new offer Thursday -- two lines with 6 GB of LTE data each for $80 a month. “Unlike the carriers who advertise large data buckets while they hide costly monthly data access fees in their fine print, we won’t charge you extra to use the data you’ve already paid for,” T-Mobile said in a news release. “Families who want fewer lines deserve a better option and we’re giving them one,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said.

Sprint’s announcement Wednesday that it will raise $2.2 billion through use of a Network LeaseCo (see 1604060070) means the carrier likely will have the cash it needs to operate its business and redeem $4.6 billion in debt maturing over the next 18 months, UBS said in a Thursday note to investors. The deal is really just an “over-collateralized” loan, UBS said. Sprint will repay the money during fiscal 2017 “and has the option to repurchase the equipment for $1 at the end of the arrangement,” UBS said. “Similar to future handset LeaseCo arrangements, this tranche will be treated as debt, while the assets remain on the balance sheet, and depreciated over time.” Wells Fargo said in a note the loan means that the carrier will be able to pay $2.3 billion it owes by Dec. 1. Sprint has made clear it plans to raise as much as $5 billion, and existing network equipment, new network equipment and some spectrum will all be part of the equation, Wells Fargo said.

Consumer Watchdog wants transportation regulators to reject Google's proposal seeking federal help to fast track its self-driving car technology through regulatory hurdles so the company can go to market. "Though couched in euphemisms and poll-tested terminology, Google’s ploy is obvious. It plainly hopes to obtain a congressional bailout from the nation’s automobile safety laws," the group wrote in a 10-page letter Thursday to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Consumer Watchdog said Google's cars are "dangerous," citing several statistics, and "can't cope" in routine traffic situations, pointing to a February incident in which a Google driverless car and California public transit bus crashed into each other. No one was injured. In a March 11 letter to Foxx, Chris Urmson, who heads Google's self-driving cars project, outlined the company's proposal that supports new authority for the transportation secretary to allow implementation of innovative safety technologies in cars following public notice and comment. He said "current authority is insufficient to keep pace with safety technologies being developed," such as adaptive beam headlights, side mirror-replacing sensors, and new automated systems necessary for fully self-driving cars. Consumer Watchdog said Google wants to replace an "open and accountable process" with an expedited one "that will favor the tech giant's business and marketing plans at the expense of consumers and the marketplace by permitting the company to collude with DOT and NHTSA behind closed doors and out of sight of the public and the news media." While automotive safety laws have made roads safer, a Google spokesman emailed Thursday that more than "33,000 people still die on our roads each year and we believe that self-driving cars can make a difference. Today’s rules were written with yesterday’s cars in mind and that’s why there needs to be a way to allow life-saving innovations on the roads once that technology has been proven to provide a equal or higher level of safety than existing standards."

AT&T and EchoStar's joint plan for sharing the 28, 37 and 39 GHz bands would protect existing fixed satellite service licensees while giving them co-primary status with new Upper Microwave Flexible Use licensees, set up protection zones in metropolitan areas to prevent new FSS installations from interfering with UMFU systems, and create coordination guidelines and parameters for FSS/UMFU spectrum sharing outside those protection zones, the companies told the FCC. In an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 14-177, they said coordination, safe harbor and aggregate interference guideline details still are being hashed out. But for the 28 GHz band they propose individually licensed FSS earth stations already operational or in the works by the UMFU auction be co-primary with UMFU licensees, with the UMFU licensee having to design its network to accept interference from the grandfathered FSS earth stations and the FSS operators allowed to add individually licensed earth stations to existing facilities. Meanwhile, they said, outside urban cores, co-primary FSS and UMFU licensees would need to engage in "good faith coordination" when placing new FSS earth stations, while within urban cores FSS could deploy on a secondary basis. They also said UMFU licensees would be required to respond to coordination requests in good faith "and cannot demand financial consideration from FSS operator" except for reimbursement of coordination expenses. Regarding the 37 and 39 GHz bands, AT&T and EchoStar are proposing combining them into one contiguous 37-40 GHz band, with UMFU use permitted throughout it. The 39-40 GHz portion of the band would be the preferred channel for new individual licensed FSS earth station deployments, and UMFU licensees there would have to accommodate those deployments on request and give them co-primary status, they said. Meanwhile, FSS deployments in the 37.5-39 GHz portion would be allowed on a secondary basis, they said. They also proposed guidelines for FSS receive earth stations and new UMFU licensees in the 39-40 GHz spectrum and for UMFU accommodation of new FSS deployment in the band. The filing recapped a meeting involving such FCC officials as International Bureau Chief Mindel de la Torre with company representatives including EchoStar Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and AT&T Assistant Vice President-Federal Regulatory Stacey Black. CTA also has pushed for creation of a new Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service in the 28 GHz, 39 GHz and 37 GHz bands (see 1601280062).

Sprint signed an agreement with several bankruptcy remote entities, collectively called Network LeaseCo, for the sale and leaseback of some of its network assets, mostly equipment located at cell towers, the carrier said in a news release Wednesday. The transaction is expected to close next week and give Sprint $2.2 billion in funding, the carrier said: “When closed, the transaction will immediately improve the company’s liquidity position at an attractive cost of capital in the mid-single digits.” Sprint Chief Financial Officer Tarek Robbiati said the company developed the deal in cooperation with parent SoftBank. “This transaction is an important first step in addressing upcoming debt maturities and allows us to stay focused on our corporate transformation, which involves growing topline revenues and aggressively taking costs out of the business to improve operating cash flow,” he said. Sprint said it will pay the money back in staggered, unequal payments through January 2018.

Nokia said it will cut thousands of jobs worldwide between now and the end of 2018, tied to its recent buy of Alcatel-Lucent. Nokia said it previously indicated it anticipates cutting just over $1 billion in operating costs in 2018. “Nokia is taking steps to adapt to challenging market conditions and to shift resources to future-oriented technologies such as 5G, the Cloud and the Internet of Things,” it said in a Wednesday news release. “As part of the program, the company also continues to target worldwide savings in real estate, services, procurement, supply chain and manufacturing.” Workforce reductions will come largely in areas where there are overlaps, including R&D and sales, Nokia said. Company representatives met Wednesday with two European Works Councils to discuss the job cuts, with similar meetings planned in almost 30 countries in future weeks, the manufacturer said. The actions are "designed to ensure that Nokia remains a strong industry leader," said Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri. "We also know that our actions will have real human consequences and, given this, we will proceed in a way that is consistent with our company values and provide transition and other support to the impacted employees." Nokia plans to cut 1,300 jobs at its Finnish bases in Espoo, Oulu and Tampere and 1,400 of its 4,800 jobs in Germany, said an article in the Wall Street Journal. Nokia plans to keep 4,200 workers in place in France for at least two years in keeping with promises to the French government to win approval of the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition. Nokia has 104,000 employees worldwide.

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved U.S. Cellular’s buy from Adams Telcom of two lower 700 MHz C-block licenses covering two local market areas in Illinois. The deal got extra scrutiny because it gives U.S. Cellular more than one-third of the currently suitable and available below-1-GHz spectrum in those markets, the bureau said Wednesday. “After carefully evaluating the likely competitive effects of [U.S. Cellular’s] increased aggregation of below-1-GHz spectrum in the relevant local market areas, as well as the other factors ordinarily considered in a case-by-case review, we find that the likelihood of competitive harm is low,” the bureau said in the order. “We find some public interest benefits are likely to be realized, such as the deployment of a competitive LTE network and a better consumer experience.”