Google agreed to partner with the Federal Railroad Administration to use federal mapping data to help people pinpoint the location of railroad crossings using a smartphone app, the FRA confirmed Monday. “Adding railroad crossing data to smartphone mapping applications just makes sense -- it means supplying drivers and passengers with additional cues that they are approaching a crossing,” the FRA said in a news release. “For drivers and passengers who are driving an unfamiliar route, traveling at night, or who lose situational awareness at any given moment, receiving an additional alert about an upcoming crossing could save lives.”

The FCC Public Safety Bureau ordered the Arizona Public Service to “show cause” why APS shouldn't be held to have acted in bad faith in refusing to conclude a frequency reconfiguration agreement (FRA) with Sprint on 800 MHz rebanding. In March, the bureau said APS was entitled to less than half of the reimbursement it sought from Sprint to retool its 800 MHz radios (see 1503100041). APS subsequently sought a stay of the order and FCC reconsideration, and both requests were denied, the bureau said Monday. After discussions between the two broke down, Sprint presented APS with an FRA consistent with the March order, the bureau said. But APS “has refused to execute the FRA provided by Sprint, contending that it should not be required to commence the retuning of subscriber equipment until notified that all of its replacement frequencies are or soon will be ‘clear,' i.e., free of frequency conflicts with other U.S. stations and stations in Mexico,” the bureau said. The FCC 2004 800 MHz rebanding order “places a strict obligation on all parties to rebanding, i.e., they must at all times act in utmost good faith,” the bureau said. “Failure to do so can result in a licensee’s facilities being relegated to secondary status, whereby they must not interfere with other licensees and must accept interference from other licensees without recourse. A licensee that does not operate in good faith can also be required to pay its own reconfiguration costs.” APS had no immediate comment.

T-Mobile asked the FCC for an extra year to complete network deployment in one census tract where it received USF Mobile Fund Phase I support. In a request for waiver and extension filed Thursday in docket 10-208, T-Mobile asked that a June 25 deadline be pushed back until June 25, 2016, to complete construction for the Census tract in Pike, Pennsylvania. It also sought a waiver and extension so it wouldn't be required to repay the Mobile Fund support it has received for that tract or to make an "additional performance default payment." T-Mobile said it had finished construction in 16 of the 17 tracts where it was the winning bidder in the Mobile Fund reverse auction. Low bids generally win. T-Mobile "also has completed construction of a mobile network in the PA Census Tract, but the special and challenging nature of the local terrain in that area has resulted in drive test results showing less coverage than required by the Commission’s construction milestone (i.e., less than 75 percent of the road miles covered)," it said. "This shortfall has resulted despite T-Mobile’s thorough planning and use of propagation studies to design the network. While T-Mobile has taken steps to improve and optimize the level of coverage in the PA Census Tract, the company has been unable to produce results that meet the Commission’s requirements."

A successful incentive auction “should result in the auctioning of wireless licenses that are minimally impaired” said CTIA and representatives from Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon in a meeting last week with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and staff from the Incentive Auction Task Force, Office of Engineering and Technology and International, Media and Wireless bureaus, according to an ex parte filing. The incentive auction needs to have transparent rules and “clear as much spectrum as possible for new licensed wireless services,” the wireless representatives said. The FCC should create a new cap on spectrum impairment and “should strive to minimize impairments while balancing this with a need to maximize the amount of spectrum recovered,” CTIA said. The FCC should also increase the amount of up-front information it will provide to bidders, such as data about inter-service interference, said the association in the filing posted Wednesday to docket 14-252. “Providing robust information to interested bidders will help them make informed decisions regarding spectrum assets and increase the likelihood of a successful auction.”

Wiley Rein introduced a spectrum analysis report called SpectrumTrack, a news release said Thursday. The report aims to assist business and regulatory analysts, investment professionals and corporate development professionals in the communications and technology fields, the release said. SpectrumTrack extracts and analyzes data from the FCC’s Universal Licensing System to create detailed licensing information for FCC “spectrum screen” and other regulatory, strategic and investment analyses, the release said. The report includes three sortable sections, including a county-by-county listing by radio service and block, showing each licensee, call sign, parent, the amount of spectrum held and the geographic percentage of the country covered by the license. It also has a sortable list of entities that includes information about the amount of spectrum held by each respective entity and its affiliates for each block in each radio service, as well as a mapping of licensees to parent entities, the release said.

The FCC approved a petition granting Carolina West a waiver of the recording, retention and reporting rules adopted in the Rural Call Completion Order, said an order from the FCC in docket 13-39 released Thursday. Commissioner Michael O’Rielly supports the relief of the company, but said he would have preferred to provide it when the commission adopted the Rural Call Completion Reconsideration Order in November, he said in a statement. Carolina West’s earlier petition for reconsideration, if granted, could have had a broader impact than granting the current company-specific waiver petition, he said. But nothing prevented the FCC from addressing this with respect to Carolina West, when it issued the Order on Reconsideration, O’Rielly said. “I hope that the Commission will do better in the future to consider the costs of its actions and avoid creating unnecessary procedures and delays,” he said. "Obligating Carolina West to comply with the recording, retention, and reporting rules adopted in the Order would thus impose a significant regulatory burden relative to Carolina West’s size," the order said.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said AT&T plans to invest $3 billion in Mexico by the end of 2018 to expand its network there to cover 100 million people with high-speed mobile Internet. Stephenson offered that projection during a meeting with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto, a Thursday news release said. “We are building a network in Mexico that is capable of bringing innovation and economic vitality to the country, just as we have done in the U.S.,” Stephenson said. "We plan to deliver high-quality, high-speed mobile Internet service to Mexico, creating the first-ever North American Mobile Service Area covering 400 million people and businesses in Mexico and the U.S.”

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division acknowledged T-Mobile’s and other competitive carriers’ push for an expanded spectrum reserve in the TV incentive auction, but stopped short of endorsing that effort, in a letter Wednesday to the FCC. T-Mobile this week launched a campaign to get the FCC to rethink its expected decision not to provide a larger amount of spectrum for competitive carriers (see 1506230055). “A number of stakeholders have called for the Commission to increase the amount of spectrum reserved from 30 to at least 40 MHz,” DOJ said. “The Department recognizes that the Commission must balance competing policy priorities in setting the appropriate reserve levels. In balancing these priorities, the Department urges the Commission to give considerable weight in determining the amount of spectrum included in the reserve to protecting and promoting competition, and the well-established competition principle that those with market power may be willing to pay the most to reinforce a leading position.” T-Mobile said the FCC should pay attention to DOJ. “Low-band spectrum is the holy grail for AT&T and Verizon," the carrier said. "If others get it, and the big two have to compete on price, their customers alone would save over $20 billion per year. That's why everyone with a wireless phone has a stake in the outcome of this proceeding, and the FCC should heed the calls of DOJ, many in Congress and a slew of consumer groups and move to strengthen the reserve.” “The Commission appreciates DOJ’s support both for our need to balance multiple priorities and for our existing reserve framework," an FCC spokesman said. "We agree that holding a timely auction is in the public interest and are working in earnest toward the stated goal of opening the Incentive Auction in the first quarter of next year.”

Smart home technology provider Vivint said it's offering Vivint Internet, a wireless service with download and upload speeds of 100 Mbps. That's more than nine times faster than the average connection speed in the U.S., the company said in a Wednesday news release. Vivint is providing the service to 15,000 customers in San Antonio and El Paso and in many cities throughout Utah, the company said. Plans are to expand the service to three new markets this year, and to eight new markets in 2016, Vivint said. The standard price of the service is $59.99 monthly, the ISP said.

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance asked the FCC to find that applicants for licenses in the 800 MHz interstitial channels should be free to select any frequency advisory committee (FAC) to do the coordination. The FCC proposed in February that it allow new, full-power, interstitial 12.5 kHz offset channels in the 809-817/854-862 MHz bands (see 1502090034), as proposed by EWA in 2009. “In the future, when the industry receives a green light from the FCC to proceed, conducting frequency coordination for the 319 Mid-Band 800 MHz interstitial channels will require awareness of both embedded and proposed system technologies, as well as sophisticated adjacent channel analyses in order to mitigate the potential for system degradations to both incumbents and applicants proposing to utilize the interstitial channels,” said EWA CEO Mark Crosby in a news release Wednesday. “The processes are the same whether the applicant is a business enterprise, critical infrastructure or public safety entity.” A public safety coordinator has no “special knowledge” that a business/industrial/land transportation (B/ILT) coordinator lacks, he said.