Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry and CCA members complained about the potential side effects of what's expected to be an unusually long quiet period before and after the TV incentive auction, said a filing at the FCC. FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman has reassured the industry repeatedly that the FCC will soon provide a road map on permissible discussions and other activities under the agency’s anti-collusion rules (see 1509160057). The “breadth and duration” of the rules “will significantly deter ongoing business activities in the wireless industry, and worse, quell participation in the Incentive Auction by both reverse and forward auction applicants,” the CCA representatives warned. CCA said the quiet period could last as long as a year. “If the Commission cannot reduce the length of the quiet period, it is imperative for the FCC to clarify the scope of the rules and to ensure that their application is as narrowly tailored as possible,” CCA said. “At the very least, the Commission should clarify that the scope of disclosures that need to be made pursuant to the anti-collusion rules is intended to be narrowly tailored to agreements relating to the licenses being auctioned, allow forward auction participants to continue operational agreement negotiations after the quiet period has commenced, and provide additional guidance regarding what agreements would be considered ‘solely operational.’” The group met with officials from the Wireless Bureau and the Incentive Auction Task Force, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-268.

Google unveiled two new versions of its Nexus phone, both of which use the Marshmallow mobile platform. The Nexus 6P is the first all-metal-body Nexus phone, built in cooperation with Huawei and crafted from aeronautical-grade aluminum, Google said in a Tuesday blog post. It starts at $499. The Nexus 5X is an updated version of the popular Nexus 5, developed in cooperation with LG, Google said. It starts at $379. They're available for pre-order on the Google Store from several countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and Japan, and come with a free 90-day subscription to Google Play Music, the company said.

The FCC set the comment dates on a proposal to amend rules to provide railroad police with access to public safety interoperability and mutual aid channels. In a May 2014 petition, the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council asked the FCC to make railroad police eligible to use public safety interoperability channels (see 1509010044). Comments are due in docket 15-199 Nov. 13, replies Nov. 30. The dates were set in a Tuesday notice in the Federal Register.

If FirstNet moves forward with a request for proposal based on its draft RFP template, there's a “high risk” it won't succeed, public safety consultant Andrew Seybold said Tuesday in a commentary carried by trade publication Urgent Communications. “A partnership is not an acquisition of widgets,” he wrote. “It is made up of two or more entities that believe, by partnering, they can accomplish together what neither could accomplish on its own.” FirstNet’s success is based on its ability to negotiate deals with industry, he said. Network service is not just a product, wrote the consultant. “The real issue is whether the final RFP will be conducive to finding partners, or if it will be just another federal-procurement document demanding product and imposing penalties, if that product is not delivered on time and in working order.”

The Massachusetts Constitution requires a warrant for tracking a person’s location using cell site location information (CSLI), unless law enforcement is searching a time period of six hours or less, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in an opinion in Commonwealth v. Estabrook Monday. Attorneys for Adam Bradley and Jason Estabrook argued that law enforcement shouldn't have been able to search or seize their phone records without first obtaining a warrant (see 1505070048). Arguing on behalf of the commonwealth, Jamie Michael Charles said because law enforcement knew the time of the murder they believed Bradley and Estabrook committed, they collected two weeks' worth of cellphone information but searched only a six-hour time frame around the time of the murder, so a warrant wasn’t needed. The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have written amicus briefs asking the court to close the six-hours-or-less loophole in the state’s warrant requirements for cellphones as authorized under Commonwealth v. Augustine (see 1504270048). The court partially agreed with the ACLU and EFF, saying the commonwealth’s request of two weeks of CSLI violates the state constitution, even if just six hours' worth of CSLI is used during a trial. In a blog post Monday, EFF Staff Attorney Andrew Crocker applauded that part of the court’s opinion, saying, “Too often law enforcement and intelligence agencies successfully argue that they should be able to access large amounts of private information as long as they only use a smaller amount.” However, Crocker expressed concern with the court’s decision not to end the six-hour loophole authorized in Augustine as well as the court’s decision to add a footnote in its opinion saying the exception to the warrant requirement for CSLI applies only to phone call CSLI and not registration CSLI. “Why should you have more protection when you walk around playing Words with Friends than when you actually exchange some words with a friend over the phone,” Crocker said.

The FCC released a memorandum of understanding with the Colombian Ministry of Information Technology and Communications agreeing to cooperate to fight mobile device theft. To “foster a vibrant and legitimate market for mobile devices,” rules need to “ensure consumers are protected from purchasing stolen devices,” the Monday memo said. The U.S. and Colombia said they plan to work with carriers to block activation or use of devices that have been identified as being stolen. They also pledged to take steps to disrupt the market for stolen handsets and share data on stolen handsets with other nations.

Just three days into the launch, Apple has sold more than 13 million iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus smartphones, “a new record,” the company said in a Monday announcement. The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be available in more than 40 additional countries beginning Oct. 9, including Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan, Apple said. They'll be available in more than 130 countries by year-end, it said. “Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple’s history,” CEO Tim Cook said.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen won’t yet tip his hand on pricing or distribution details about the Priv, his company’s first Android smartphone, Chen said on a Friday earnings call. “You'll have to wait for a little bit on that one,” Chen told a questioner who asked about the Priv’s gross margin and anticipated selling price. Chen conceded he “kind of jumped the gun" to announce the Priv as he did Friday “because it's leaking everywhere and I didn't think that it makes total logical sense for us to have this conversation when it's leaking everywhere and I won't talk about it.” Chen wanted only to confirm “that we are bringing our security know-how onto the Android ecosystem and we built a phone with the help of a lot of people, including working with Google,” he said of BlackBerry’s proprietary Enterprise Mobility Management security platform. BlackBerry has been “working on this strategy for a long time,” but “unfortunately it leaked, so I think it's best to let everybody know,” Chen said. BlackBerry has a pricing strategy in mind for the Priv, and “we are working with literally all the major carriers” to bring the Priv to market later in calendar 2015, he said: “The distribution strategy, you have to wait a little bit on that because we do have some choices.” The Priv, with a curved, “all-touch” screen, is BlackBerry’s “answer for former BlackBerry users who missed the physical keyboard” on BlackBerry devices, but also have come to rely on the ecosystem of apps available through the Google Play store, Chen said. The phone derives its name from “the BlackBerry core mission of protecting our customer's privacy,” he said. “That's how we thought about it.” Chen thinks the Priv’s “key takeaway here” is that BlackBerry continues to lead in the industry in mobile security, “and now we are bringing the BlackBerry security know-how into the Android ecosystem,” he said. “We can address a larger and growing segment of the enterprise space and we believed we could be a leader in this space.” Chen answered with a firm “absolutely” when asked whether it’s more “cost-effective” to bring the Android-based Priv to market than a BlackBerry 10-based device. That's because “a lot of the drivers” for the all the Android chipsets “are already in place,” he said. “I don't have to spend any time managing money for drivers,” he said. “I also don't have to do anything regarding the apps ecosystem, or the API surrounding that,” he said of Google’s application program interface protocols. “So all I need to do is to concentrate on security and the privacy features and add it to that ecosystem,” he said.

Amtrak told the FCC it supports a proposed commission plan to expand the existing Nationwide Programmatic Agreement for the Collocation of Wireless Antennas to take in small-facility deployments. Amtrak said it's not only putting in place positive train control along its lines, requiring licensing by the FCC, but also using other communications facilities in its stations and along its lines. “The evolution of communications technologies to ever smaller equipment is an exciting development in the field, with positive implications for telecommunications infrastructure deployment,” Amtrak said. Its filing was posted Monday in docket 15-180. In July, the Wireless Bureau sought comment on a proposal to expand the agreement.

The U.S.-based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Germany-based Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance said they agreed to work together on the deployment of 5G. The groups hope to "enable and support the timely delivery of 5G to the market,” a Monday news release said. “In the coming years, both parties intend to achieve this by working together in projects on 5G related issues and by carrying out joint 5G public relation measures.” ATIS President Susan Miller said the agreement underscores the importance of cooperation. "ATIS sees its agreement with NGMN as important to its leadership role in delivering 5G requirements focused on the North American market and contributing them to global efforts,” she said. “The goal is to deliver the long-promised convergence of all services onto a common framework, with corresponding enhancements to efficiency, security and service velocity."