The FCC should take flexibility into account if it imposes new service requirements for licensees, Competitive Carriers Association representatives said in a meeting with FCC Wireless Bureau staffers. The FCC should also refresh the record in the proceeding before imposing new rules, CCA said. “If the Commission were to consider requiring licensees to show ongoing, consistent service under an updated license renewal regime, for example, CCA noted that service may be intermittently discontinued under certain licenses to address network developments,” the filing said. “A licensee may discontinue service to perform network upgrades from 3G to 4G, outsource outdated technology, re-farm spectrum, and tend to other network repairs,” CCA said. “Secondary market transactions and spectrum acquisitions may require additional time to adequately transition the spectrum between networks.” CCA also called on the FCC to build reasonable exceptions into the rules. “Some towers located in rural and remote areas have the ability to provide service, but may not carry regular traffic because of their remote locations,” said the group. Its filing was posted Monday in docket 10-112.

FirstNet plans to put in place its own approval process for devices that can be safely used on its network, said a Monday blog post by Kameron Behnam, FirstNet device test and certification manager. The FirstNet certification is on top of approval of the device by the FCC and commercial carrier acceptance. “In general, the mobile device approval process is necessary to verify that a device meets certain technical specifications and unique operator requirements to ensure that the device is interoperable with the operator’s network and doesn’t negatively impact network performance,” Behnam wrote. “FirstNet plans to have its own carrier acceptance test plan that focuses on validating a device is safe for use on the Band 14 network, testing device features unique to public safety, and testing performance aspects of Band 14 that are above and beyond the 3GPP [3rd Generation Partnership Project] and other specifications. Examples of features unique to public safety include direct mode, proximity services, mission critical push-to-talk, etc.”

BlackBerry is “encouraged” with the progress it’s making toward the goal of fashioning a profitable smartphone device business during the fiscal year ending in February, CEO John Chen said on a Friday earnings call. However, BlackBerry’s smartphone sales volume in Q4 ended Feb. 29 “was below our expectations,” Chen said. BlackBerry shares closed 7.5 percent lower Friday at $7.48. Chief Financial Officer James Yersh disclosed that BlackBerry sold 600,000 handsets in Q4, or 100,000 fewer than it sold in Q3. Analysts said the Q4 volume finished well below Wall Street's expectations of 850,000. “The softness in the high end of the smartphone market is certainly a headwind,” Chen said. “But the main issue that we face, that we need to address, is the distribution.” BlackBerry’s Priv, the company’s first Android smartphone, “is now available in 34 countries, up from four last quarter,” Chen said. “Unfortunately, contract negotiations took longer than planned with certain major carriers, including Verizon.” The delay pushed the sales volume BlackBerry had hoped to report from Verizon for Q4 into Q1, Chen said. “However, Priv continues to receive very positive reviews and net promoter scores.” Priv’s “value proposition” of offering “the most secure Android smartphone for the enterprise is actually quite strong,” he said. “We believe this market opportunity, whilst maybe small today, will continue to develop and open up, and we are leveraging this through increased channel coverages.” Having launched Priv in March through “1,700-plus” Verizon retail stores in the U.S., “we are working on six more countries and 14 more additional carriers,” Chen said. “In the last week, we formally launched in Japan, and next week we are planning to launch in Mexico.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment Friday on ANSI C63.26-2015 “American National Standard for Compliance Testing of Transmitters Used in Licensed Radio Services” and whether it should be incorporated into the commission’s rules “by reference” as part of an open rulemaking proceeding on FCC equipment authorization rules. Comment dates will come when the notice is published in the Federal Register. In the NPRM, the commission acknowledged the then-pending ANSI standard, OET said. “It observed that references to the applicable measurement procedures in ANSI C63.26 could replace measurement procedures set forth in both the Part 2 equipment authorization rules and many of the specific licensed service rule parts.”

MoffettNathanson Friday downgraded its outlook on the wireless sector to neutral, AT&T from neutral to sell and Verizon from buy to neutral. “Telecom stocks have enjoyed an almost pitch-perfect backdrop over the past six months, with a strong dollar, falling interest rates, and falling risk appetites,” the firm said in a note to investors. “Perhaps more surprisingly, the Telecoms have continued to perform well even as the market has rebounded from its February trough as risk appetites expanded, tracking lower expectations for further rate hikes. Both AT&T and Verizon have very substantially outperformed.” The bad news is that device sales are slowing and average revenue per user reported by the carriers “remain challenged,” the firm said. MoffettNathanson was the most bearish on AT&T. "Real growth metrics are much weaker than they appear on the surface,” it said. “As we enter the back half of this year, AT&T will begin to anniversary their new segment reporting, and the weak organic growth rates of underlying businesses will be much more apparent. Recent commentary about the company's ‘success’ in creating a quad play bundle with DirecTV only underscores our concern.”

Qualcomm reminded the FCC its rules and test procedures don’t take into account portable devices that operate in high-frequency spectrum and suggested a possible approach the agency could take, in a filing in docket 14-177. Qualcomm said it urged the FCC to use the limits and test procedures established by ANSI/IEEE and the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection for hand-held device operations in the millimeter wave bands. “These standards are used for approvals of portable devices that operate in the millimeter wave bands in the European Union, China, Japan, Brazil, and Canada, among others,” Qualcomm said. Qualcomm representatives met with officials from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. “This view is unanimously supported by all parties who commented on this issue” at the FCC, the filing said.

APCO warned the FCC that public safety agencies are seeing increasing interference in the 800 MHz band. The problems are a result of increased deployments by carriers overloading the front end (862-869 MHz) portion of public safety radios, APCO said. “Filters, if made available, could help alleviate the problem, but may work more effectively for mobile devices than for portable devices,” APCO said in a filing. “There are limited options at this point for purchase of new radios that do not contain the front end frequencies, assuming that public safety agencies have the funding in place and the radios offer the features they require.” APCO officials said they met with officials from the FCC Wireless and Public Safety bureaus. A filing on the meetings was posted Friday in docket 12-40. The FCC approved an order in 2004 "rebanding" the 800 MHz band designed to alleviate public safety interference problems.

Wireless carriers face a double standard on free data services compared with the rest of industry, CTIA President Meredith Baker said in a commentary in Morning Consult. The FCC is reportedly close to a decision on whether some practices by carriers are considered a violation of agency rules for zero-rated offerings (see 1603300032). The largest video provider in the U.S., Netflix, announced last week it was throttling traffic on some mobile networks without clear notice, Baker wrote. “JetBlue and Amazon have a partnership that lets you watch Amazon Prime movies for free on your flight over Wi-Fi. This is a good thing for passengers in the sky: free data and free content,” she said. “Yet this week, special interest groups demanded that the FCC also outlaw those same free data relationships when provided by a wireless provider because of the FCC’s sweeping general Internet conduct standard under the Net Neutrality regime. All of this despite the fact that consumers have embraced free data services and benefit from a better mobile experience -- not just on planes, but everywhere.”

Netflix’s throttling of its own video stream on AT&T and Verizon devices (see 1603250050) was a bad thing, net neutrality advocates concede, Fred Campbell, executive director of Tech Knowledge, said Thursday in a Forbes blog post. But Netflix, as an edge provider, didn’t violate FCC net neutrality rules, which shows a fundamental problem with the rules, Campbell wrote. “Netflix’s behavior was clearly inconsistent with the ‘end goals’ of net neutrality articulated by Google in the FCC first open Internet proceeding: ‘an open, transparent, and neutral Internet environment’ that ‘would optimally extend across all communications platforms and providers,’” he said. “The fact that Netflix’s behavior violated net neutrality’s goals without violating the rules the FCC wrote doesn’t vindicate Netflix. It impugns the FCC’s inexplicable practice of exempting web-based … companies from regulatory oversight while micromanaging the network management practices and investment decisions of Internet service providers.” Campbell is former chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau.

The 9-1-1 Location Technologies Test Bed, an independent entity established by CTIA, said Thursday it has picked LCC Design Services as the administrator of the indoor 911 location accuracy test bed. “As the independent administrator of the test bed, LCC will develop a process to evaluate the indoor performance of wireless carriers’ deployed and new technology vendor[s]’ ... wireless 9‑1‑1 location accuracy solutions,” CTIA said in a news release. “The test bed results will provide critical information to determine compliance with the FCC’s rules and potential improvements to existing capabilities that will enhance public safety’s abilities to respond to emergencies quickly and safely.” The FCC approved an order in January 2015 requiring carriers to improve their performance in identifying the location of wireless callers to 911 (see 1501290066).