FirstNet’s Public Safety Advisory Committee is focusing on local control and on identity, credential and access management (ICAM) as it helps the authority plan its network, PSAC Chairman Harlin McEwen said Monday in a blog post. “In the coming year, I believe the PSAC will continue to play a substantial role in working through key implementation issues." On local control, PSAC’s goals are to “further define and refine the operational requirements of FirstNet’s local control application,” McEwen said. FirstNet is particularly interested in the advisory group’s advice on “developing governance of the use of quality of service, priority and preemption by public safety and sharing such governance with the user community,” he said. “ICAM is a critical enabler for facilitating mutual aid and assisting first responders in accessing necessary data to effectively perform their duties."

The FCC should maintain its long-standing policy of light-handed regulation, based on a “permissionless innovation framework,” Mobile Future said in a paper released Monday. The paper looks at regulation going back to 1939. “While the Commission has modified its unlicensed rules over the years, certain fundamental FCC principles have remained constant,” the paper argues. “Chief among these principles has been a minimally intrusive regulatory approach, with unlicensed devices authorized to freely operate in accord with basic technical requirements designed to mitigate interference, limit radiofrequency exposure, and maximize the utilization of the unlicensed bands.”

WifiForward's Save our Wi-Fi campaign has concerns about the FCC’s announcement Friday that it will allow testing of LTE-unlicensed by Qualcomm and Verizon (see 1601290064), the group said in a statement by Executive Director Bill Maguire. "Given the significant concerns raised by many stakeholders regarding harm LTE-U will cause to broadband connections over Wi-Fi, we hope the FCC will closely monitor the Qualcomm and Verizon trial,” Maguire said. “We are encouraged that the FCC still expects that Qualcomm and other LTE-U supporters [will] work closely with the Wi-Fi community on coexistence testing in the future."

Roger Sherman, chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau since November 2013, is leaving at the end of February, to be replaced by Jon Wilkins, current managing director at the FCC, the agency said Friday. Sherman came to the FCC from the House and was formerly a lawyer for Sprint (see 1311050058). Sherman's "expertise and leadership in protecting the open Internet, streamlining infrastructure deployment, helping establish the historic market-based spectrum reserve, and playing key roles in vitally important spectrum policy initiatives -- from the historic AWS-3 auction to the broadcast incentive auction to our work on 5G -- will have a lasting impact," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a news release. Wilkins also came to the FCC in late 2013, the start of the Wheeler chairmanship, as the FCC’s chief operating official and as an adviser to Wheeler on management.

A strong holiday quarter boosted worldwide smartphone shipments to new record highs “thanks to robust product offerings at numerous price points in both mature and emerging markets,” IDC said in a quarterly smartphone tracker report. That was in sharp contrast to an early December “forecast update” in which IDC said 2015 would be the first full year of only single-digit percentage worldwide smartphone sales growth due to a slowdown in consumer demand in most Asian markets, Latin America and Western Europe (see 1512030051). Now, IDC estimates that for the full year, worldwide smartphone makers shipped a total of 1.4 billion units, “marking the highest year of shipments on record,” up 10.1 percent from the 1.3 billion units shipped in 2014, the research firm said Wednesday.

Crown Castle plans to promote Chief Financial Officer Jay Brown to CEO, Crown announced during the company's Q4 financial results webcast Thursday. Brown will take over for Ben Moreland June 1. Moreland said he believes the tower industry is "in the midst of a multiyear wireless investment cycle." Crown Castle increased its 2016 outlook for site rental revenue by $10 million, site rental gross margin by $7 million, adjusted EBITDA by $12 million, and adjusted funds from operations by $11 million, Brown said. The increased outlook reflects strong 2015 results and an anticipated 2016 leasing activity similar to 2015, the company's earnings statement said. Overall, Crown Castle took in $62 million more in site rental revenue in Q4 2015 than in Q4 2014, it said.

The volume of streaming video that T-Mobile subscribers are watching is up sharply with the Binge On free video service, the carrier said Thursday in a news release. Customers on qualifying data plans already are watching more than twice the video they did before, T-Mobile said. Since the service was launched, subscribers have streamed 34 million gigabytes for free, the carrier said. T-Mobile also said it added Amazon Video, Fox News, Univision and the WWE Network to the list of providers offered on the service. “Binge On is our most disruptive Un-carrier move yet,” said T-Mobile CEO John Legere. “It has literally changed the way millions of people are watching video.” Some net neutrality advocates have questioned whether zero-rated services like Binge On violate the FCC's net neutrality rules (see 1601080030).

Ford plans to continue “to invest for profitable growth this year and beyond not only in the traditional business, the core business, but also as we transform Ford into an auto and a mobility company,” said Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks on a Thursday earnings call. As part of its effort aimed at “aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities” in the mobility area, Ford’s plan is “to have the largest autonomous vehicle test fleet in the industry,” CEO Mark Fields said. Fields doesn’t worry that moving to become more of a mobility company will distract the consumer from the Ford brand, he said in Q&A. “It’s really important that we don’t lose sight of our core business." Partnerships will become increasingly important to the company as Ford transitions to more of a mobility force, he said. Ford’s partnership with Amazon “came out of an idea from one of our folks in our Palo Alto facility,” he said. At CES, Fields showcased a partnership to integrate Ford’s Sync Connect and Amazon Echo to provide voice control access between the car and home.

A report by MoffettNathanson validates T-Mobile claims that with more access to low-band spectrum the carrier can continue to grow its network, T-Mobile said in a filing at the FCC in docket 12-268. T-Mobile also submitted the report to the FCC. “MoffettNathanson documents how T-Mobile rapidly leveraged the 700 MHz spectrum it has acquired to ‘significantly’ expand its coverage footprint,” T-Mobile said. “From the end of 2014 to the end of 2015, T-Mobile expanded its network from 265 million LTE-covered POPs to 304 million LTE-covered POPs.” T-Mobile said this dramatic expansion “demonstrates T-Mobile’s ability and incentive to quickly improve service, invest in new facilities and expand consumer choice in markets the company could not seriously contest before it had access to low-band spectrum.” T-Mobile said it's using its 700 MHz spectrum to serve rural markets. “T-Mobile believes rural customers deserve the benefits of competition that T-Mobile is providing, just as it has provided for largely urban and suburban customers to date,” the carrier said. T-Mobile said its active buildout of the 700 MHz spectrum points to why the FCC should deny AT&T’s proposed buy of three lower 700 MHz C-block licenses from East Kentucky Network. AT&T disagreed, saying it also needs the spectrum to beef up its LTE offering in the markets covered (see 1601110062). “T-Mobile is prepared to purchase this spectrum at market-based, non-foreclosure prices and has proven it can deploy the spectrum rapidly and to the benefit of consumers and competition,” T-Mobile said. T-Mobile got most of its 700 MHz spectrum in a secondary market deal from Verizon.

The FCC should move forward to open the 28, 37 and 39 GHz bands for licensed use, CTIA said in comments on the FCC’s spectrum frontier proceeding. CTIA said spectrum above 24 GHz should be primarily licensed, but it supports a mixture of licensed and unlicensed offerings. CTIA also said companies need certainty and the agency should avoid tough “use it or share it” rules. Proposed performance rules “are not viable and are ill-suited for the millimeter wave bands,” CTIA said. Since “the primary promise of millimeter wave band spectrum is the potential for very high speed data throughput,” the FCC should allow “extensive, contiguous spectrum blocks,” CTIA said. CTIA said it "believes that this proceeding will play an important role in both enabling 5G services and addressing future spectrum challenges. As wireless services grow more advanced and lower-frequency spectrum grows increasingly scarce, it will be necessary for the Commission to explore the use of higher-frequency bands for mobile services.” The filing, in docket 14-177, hadn't been posted by the FCC by our deadline. CTA urged the FCC to move quickly to expand unlicensed operations throughout the entire 57-71 GHz band. The FCC should also create a new Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service in the 28 GHz, 39 GHz and 37 GHz bands, CTA said. The high-frequency bands “hold promise for meeting demand in heavily congested areas and can be one tool (of many) to alleviate the spectrum crunch,” CTA said in comments, also in docket 14-177. “Beyond providing supplemental capacity for wide-area mobile networks, these bands may also be useful for innovative and emerging applications, including backhaul, other point-to-point applications, unlicensed wireless cable replacement, satellite and aerial broadband, and other services.”