Sprint Chief Financial Officer Tarek Robbiati confirmed reports (see 1510020053) the company is planning to cut $2.5 billion in costs, an article posted on SeekingAlpha.com said Friday. While in Tokyo for a meeting with SoftBank executives, Robbiati said Sprint's cost structure is "bloated" and it will cut $2 billion in operating costs and an additional $500 million in equipment spending, according to Seeking Alpha.

The FCC should open a real-time text (RTT) rulemaking and cultivate emerging technology that can benefit persons with disabilities, the agency's Disability Advisory Committee recommended Thursday. The committee adopted a resolution that noted the emergence of real-time text services and recommended the FCC "begin a rulemaking to explore if RTT is a solution that meets or exceeds the objectives" of existing wireless text-telephony (TTY) rules, and particularly whether RTT "better meets the communications and emergency access needs of today's consumers, including individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind or speech disabled individuals, than does TTY." The resolution also recommended the commission explore, in the same rulemaking, whether other next-generation text-based communications technologies could be viable replacements for TTY. The committee suggested the FCC consider numerous specific issues and questions in the rulemaking to facilitate "a smooth transition from TTY to RTT and other next-generation solutions" while ensuring that consumer needs are met and wireless carriers and equipment manufacturers can carry out their obligations. AT&T has asked for a rulemaking aimed at replacing TTY with RTT and recently was granted a temporary waiver to offer RTT service (see 1510060026). The committee also adopted a resolution recommending the FCC undertake various efforts to understand and promote the use of emerging technologies to improve communications access for persons with disabilities.

T-Mobile sees LTE-unlicensed as providing the first real competition for Wi-Fi, said Mark McDiarmid, vice president-radio network engineering, during a final panel at the Competitive Carriers Association’s annual conference in Fort Lauderdale. Competition is good, he said. “It encourages ecosystems to perform and reform.” Competition leads to “breakthroughs,” he said. Jim Lienau, chief technology officer at Wisconsin-based Cellcom, said his company is very interested in unlicensed. “Anything that can help to bring a better product or service or any more capacity into rural areas is a plus for us,” he said. “We’re in areas where Wi-Fi isn’t even available,” he said. Cellcom has brought broadband to some areas for the first time, he said. Lienau said he sees LTE-U in the end as “just another tool in the toolbox.” LTE-U is one way to help meet the surge in data in the mobile sector, said Neville Meijers, Qualcomm vice president-small cells. “We’ve got to provide more spectrum, better technology, better devices, innovation around things like carrier aggregation,” he said. “We need better deployment of small cells.” LTE-U also isn't a “land grab” of unlicensed spectrum, Meijers said. Lienau said small carriers also need to “keep their eye on 5G, where it’s going, because we all need to be a part of it.” Carriers need to “keep that engine running” and they have to deploy 4G first to even get to 5G, he said.

AT&T started to allow wireless Wi-Fi VoIP calls Thursday, two days after getting the needed waiver from the FCC (see 1510060026), the carrier said. “Wi-Fi Calling is a complement to AT&T’s already great network coverage,” Bill Smith, president AT&T Network Operations, said in a blog post. For the service to work, customers need a compatible device with iOS 9 installed, a postpaid wireless account set up for HD Voice and the Wi-Fi Internet connection, he said.

Samsung is offering a free one-year trial to Texture by Next Issue to customers who buy the Galaxy Tab S2 through Nov. 20. The online service offers subscriptions to 160 magazines for $9 per month for the basic version, and $14.99 for premium. The offer is only for new subscribers, said Samsung.

More than 25 privacy advocates and national consumer groups, including the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog, Consumers Union, Electronic Privacy Information Center and the World Privacy Forum, sent a letter to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray Thursday, expressing “grave concerns raised by the early reports of the significant data security breach affecting T-Mobile customers and applicants whose information was stored by Experian” (see 1510020051). Since Experian is one of three nationwide consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), “each holding data on over 200 million consumers,” the groups asked the agencies to “fully investigate this breach, including whether other Experian databases have been breached,” the letter said. The groups asked the agencies to determine how hackers would be allowed to “access the information of T-Mobile customers but not the main credit report files,” and determine if different security measures are in place. “If there are no such differences, doesn’t this raise the troubling possibility that the servers holding highly sensitive credit and personal information of over 200 million Americans is vulnerable to a data hack by identity thieves?” the letter asked. A breach of a credit reporting agency takes the problem of data breaches to a “whole new and dangerous level given the extraordinarily large amounts of critical financial information they hold,” the letter said. “Identity thieves could play havoc of an unimaginably huge scale with access to such data, with potentially devastating consequences to consumers, financial institutions, and the American economy,” it said. The groups also expressed concern with Experian’s decision not to offer a security or credit freeze to consumers, which is the only way to stop new account financial identity theft, the groups said. The “breached firms are only offering weaker credit monitoring, so we also ask the regulators: Is there any authority for the CFPB to require the nationwide CRAs to provide free security freezes to affected consumers?” it said. Meanwhile, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster issued a news release Wednesday saying as many as 263,000 people in the state could be affected by the breach.

The number of wireless charging-ready devices outpaced charger shipments, but resonant wireless charging should boost the overall wireless charger market, said a report from ABI Research. Some 213 million Powermat/Rezence chargers are forecast to ship by 2020, but they will be outpaced by the 713 million Qi chargers expected to ship during the period, said ABI. Many smartphone original equipment manufacturers haven’t bundled wireless chargers with handsets, which has stunted the market for chargers, said ABI, but growing awareness and dropping prices should drive sales of chargers per active user, said the research firm. Broadcom, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Samsung are among the companies that belong to both the Qi and Powermat/Rezence trade groups, but companies “will need to send clear signals about their product support to consumers,” said ABI Tuesday. Samsung ships devices today support both Powermat and Qi, but ABI predicts Samsung eventually will throw its full support behind Qi in future products.

Customers who buy a $299 Netgear Nighthawk DST AC1900 router from Best Buy will get Geek Squad set-up help to customize settings, connect devices and secure their network, plus a year of unlimited Geek Squad support by phone or online, the chain said in a Wednesday announcement. The promotional offer is to address the growing problem in U.S. homes of strained Wi-Fi networks and slower connection speeds caused by adding more connectivity devices, Best Buy said. The Netgear router was built to Best Buy’s specifications and “can keep up with the growing number of connected devices in the home, while also virtually eliminating Wi-Fi dead zones,” it said. The router can support 10 or more connected devices at speeds up to 1.9 Gbps, it said.

“For America’s drone technology to actually take flight, we need a regulatory framework that embodies a risk-based approach to integrating unmanned aircraft systems [into the national airspace] to maximize safety, utility and economic benefit,” said CEA CEO Gary Shapiro in a news release Wednesday. Shapiro’s comments came as the House Aviation Subcommittee held a hearing on ensuring aviation safety in the era of unmanned aircraft systems. “The drone industry is set to take off one-million flights per day within the next 20 years given the right regulatory environment,” for uses ranging from search and rescue to package delivery to filming movies to precision agriculture, Shapiro said. “Until the Federal Aviation Administration releases clear rules authorizing drones in the national airspace, the industry and CEA will continue to educate drone enthusiasts about the safe and responsible operation of drones through the Know Before You Fly campaign.”

Sprint’s decision to sit out the TV incentive auction, after lobbying hard for a spectrum reserve, teaches a valuable lesson, Free State Foundation President Randolph May said Wednesday in a blog post. “The foremost lesson is one I have tried to hammer home for many years,” May wrote. “Absent a true market failure -- and there is not one with respect to the marketplace for broadband services, including wireless services, the Commission needs to quit trying to manage competition.” May’s comments miss the point of Sprint’s advocacy, Larry Krevor, vice president-legal and government affairs-spectrum, said in an email. “Yes, Sprint supported strengthening the spectrum reserve, along with virtually the entire wireless communications industry, other than Verizon and AT&T,” he said. But the record makes clear Sprint’s focus was on persuading the FCC to minimize the “impairment” 600 MHz winners would suffer from remaining TV broadcast operations, Krevor said. “Sprint’s efforts helped the Commission improve the quality of the auctioned spectrum, thereby producing better spectrum for all auction participants to bid on and higher auction revenues.”