PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein urged government, industry and education leaders to collaborate to develop a "wireless workforce of the future" to keep pace with the increased demand for wireless data. "Wireless infrastructure will carry the heaviest load in easing the wireless data crunch," Adelstein said Wednesday during the Wireless Industry Workforce Development Summit at the White House. "Our goal is to improve the proficiency of every aspect of the skilled workforce that builds, upgrades, and maintains wireless broadband infrastructure," he said. During the summit meeting, Adelstein commended the Obama administration's recognition of the importance of the wireless infrastructure industry and the president's Wednesday announcement of a pilot project expansion to provide broadband access to public housing residents. "The Digital Divide exists in urban as well as rural America," Adelstein, a former FCC commissioner, said. "Today's announcement will help bridge that divide and bring us one step closer to achieving the goal of ubiquitous broadband coverage."

The exclusion zones in FCC rules for the 3.5 GHz band are still too restrictive and, as a result, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group on wireless local area networks (WLANs) will not develop a standard to support IEEE 802.11 WLANs in this band, the working group said in comments filed at the FCC in docket 12-354. The working group said it conducted a straw poll of members at a meeting in May and there was overwhelming agreement on this point. “The success of products based on this standard, depends heavily on the industry’s ability to produce low-cost devices which in turn depends on the mass production of silicon; a time consuming and very expensive process,” the filing said. “The current rules restrict the size of the potential market for products in the 3550-3700 MHz band to the point where development of such products is not economically viable.” The FCC approved an order finalizing rules for the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band in April, opening the band partly for unlicensed use and for small cells, while protecting Navy and other systems already in the band.

Sprint began its Direct 2 You personalized phone setup and delivery service in Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas, the company said in a news release Monday. The service lets Sprint customers meet with a service representative at a location of their choosing (see 1505180052). Direct 2 You is also available in other big cities and is expected to be introduced to more throughout 2015, Sprint said.

The Wireless Bureau Tuesday sought comment on Progeny’s request that it be allowed to extend and consolidate the Multilateration and Location Monitoring Service buildout deadlines for many of its licenses, giving Progeny “a unified single milestone deadline” for 75 of its economic area licenses. Comments are due Aug. 3, replies Aug. 13. Among Progeny’s asks is an extension of its initial milestone deadline of approximately 11 months until June 5, 2013, a date when Progeny said it launched operations in its top 40 economic areas (EAs), the bureau said. For its remaining licenses, “Progeny seeks to consolidate the first and second build-out deadlines into a single unified deadline as follows: for its largest 24 EAs, Progeny seeks a deadline of April 3, 2020; for its next largest 22 EAs, Progeny seeks a deadline of April 3, 2021; and for its remaining 69 EAs, Progeny seeks a deadline of April 3, 2023,” the bureau said.

The FCC should not provide a larger reserve spectrum to be set aside in the TV incentive auction than the current 30 MHz, National Urban League President Marc Morial said in a letter to the FCC. The issue is before the FCC as it takes up refinements to the auction rules at its Thursday meeting (see 1507060068). “T-Mobile -- which reportedly is in merger discussions with DISH -- has asked the Commission to increase the set aside to 40 MHz,” Morial wrote. “That would be a mistake because large multi-billion dollar corporations do not need a taxpayer-funded handout, especially when that handout comes at the expense of underserved communities. Restricting competition by reducing the number of bidders for even more spectrum would reduce the revenues raised in the auction without providing a commensurate benefit to consumers.” The filing was made in docket 12-268.

ATIS said Tuesday it has completed a feasibility study of how the commercial cellular network may be used to disseminate early earthquake warnings as part of the proposed California Earthquake Early Warning System. “The goal of this work is to identify possible methods to harness today's advanced cellular technologies to deliver time-sensitive Early Earthquake Warning (EEW) notifications to the public,” ATIS said in a news release. “ATIS' study evaluates techniques to distribute EEW notifications to mobile devices via the cellular network in coordination with the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN).” ATIS found a wireless EEW notification is “a viable concept designed within the constraints of the cellular wireless networks.” ATIS also proposed an architecture for the broadcast of time-sensitive EEW notifications using capabilities in the LTE broadcast channel. “The study advises against solutions using traditional SMS or push data services, which would not deliver effective and timely early warnings, but instead would swamp the network and slow message delivery,” ATIS said.

Fifty-two percent of all shoppers using a smartphone for purchases in Q2 2015 used the iOS 8 operating system, according to a report released Monday by mobile commerce provider BrandingBrand.com, which also said that iOS 8 accounted for 56 percent of all Q2 smartphone-generated revenue. BrandingBrand.com's analysis also found that more smartphone users are adopting Lollipop, Android's newest OS, which made up 12 percent of all smartphone visits to online stores and 32 percent of Android visits in Q2 -- up 225 percent from Q1.

“Talk to your kids about your rules for when and where it's appropriate to use their phones,” FTC Consumer and Business Education Division Counsel Carol Kando-Pineda wrote in a blog post Monday. Before giving children a mobile phone, decide whether they need one designed for children that has features like limited Internet access, minute management, number privacy and emergency buttons, Kando-Pineda said. Advise kids to use features like GPS technology revealing their location sparingly “and only with friends they know in person and trust,” she said. “Encourage them to think about their privacy and get the okay of the photographer or the person in the shot before posting videos or photos,” Kando-Pineda said. “It could be embarrassing and even unsafe,” she said. “Filters you've installed on your home computer won't limit what kids can do on a phone.”

The FCC should ignore further arguments in favor of an expanded amount of reserve spectrum for the TV incentive auction and let the auction proceed, Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said in a Monday blog post. “We already had this debate with the initial mobile spectrum holdings report and order a year ago,” Brake wrote. “There was an extensive back and forth on this very issue, the FCC already decided on a compromise. The FCC recognized the importance of 600 MHz spectrum to the competitive landscape, but also recognized that the primary advantage of auctioning spectrum is to discover the firm who values a particular license most.” The issue is before the FCC as it takes up refinements to the auction rules at its Thursday meeting (see 1507060068). Despite the claims of their competitors, Verizon and AT&T are the most spectrum-restrained carriers, Brake wrote. “These companies are not hoarding spectrum to foreclose competitors, but aggressively deploying,” he said. “Furthermore, this is an industry in the midst of a price war with margins falling. In fact, T-Mobile appears to be doing quite well by focusing on capacity in urban areas. Issues around rural coverage in this debate are largely red herrings -- the need for more spectrum, and, frankly, the money, is still in cities.”

The Competitive Carriers Association and leading members T-Mobile and Sprint jointly met with FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to make their case for a larger spectrum reserve than the 30 MHz proposed by the commission. Dish Network was also at the meeting. The competitive carriers also stressed the importance of getting the reserve trigger right in the auction rules, said a filing posted Monday in docket 12-269. “The spectrum reserve is the only remaining competitive safeguard still under consideration to prevent AT&T and Verizon from using the 600 MHz auction to further consolidate their already considerable low-band spectrum holdings,” the competitors said.