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.”

Forty percent of smartphone owners use voice recognition, said a Parks Associates report Wednesday. More than half of iPhone owners use voice control such as Google Now or Siri, compared with less than a third of Android users, said Parks. Among smartphone users ages 18-24, nearly half use voice recognition software, as younger consumers and iOS users are “exploring more intelligent features and interfaces, including voice control," said Harry Wang, director-health and mobile product research. Use of Apple’s Siri among iPhone users rose from 40 percent to 52 percent between 2013 and 2015, representing 15 percent of all U.S. broadband households, said the report. Growing interest in voice control is driving the technology into new IoT areas, said Wang, citing Vivint’s home security demonstration at CES using Amazon Echo and Volvo’s demo of Microsoft’s Cortana in connected cars.

Health concerns of opponents of its proposed two-year experimental license to allow nationwide testing in the 71-76 and 81-86 GHz bands "are genuinely held [but] there is no factual basis for them," Google said in a letter to the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology posted Wednesday. Members of the electromagnetic hypersensitivity community filed numerous informal objections in recent weeks to Google's application and to a similar experimental license application by SpaceX (see 1601190013). In its letter, Google said its proposed experimental operations "present vastly less risk from RF exposure than other transmissions the Commission routinely authorizes." It also said its terrestrial antennas will point skyward, and transmitted power levels from its airborne transmitters -- along with their aerial height -- means even if one of the airborne transmitters were aimed directly at a person, "the signal strength received on the ground would be millions of times weaker than FCC limits for the band." The company defended its proposal against criticisms of possible interference to existing fixed microwave operations in the E-band, saying it will use "proprietary interference-mitigation methods" that use FCC link registrations, the precise location of its transmitters, and technical information about the transmitters and antennas. "With this information, Google will dynamically calculate available frequencies, optimal bandwidths and maximum transmit powers for any given location," it said. The company said it wouldn't use combinations of center frequency, bandwidth, transmit power and pointing direction that would create excessive interference for any registered receiver.

AT&T is still taking a wait-and-see approach on the TV incentive auction, CEO Randall Stephenson said during a call with analysts Wednesday, after the carrier released Q4 results (see 1601260066). “We'll see what the auction brings and then how everybody participates, but I haven't been bashful in saying if there's an opportunity to get another 2 x 10” MHz of low-band spectrum “we would pursue it.” Unknowns remain, Stephenson said. “It's not yet to us really clear what the spectrum footprints are going to look like and whether you can piece together truly a ubiquitous 2 x 10 type footprint, which is really important to us to be bringing another band of spectrum into our operation.” Stephenson noted AT&T spent $18 billion last year in the AWS-3 auction and the 40 MHz of “fallow spectrum” in which it can deploy its TV Everywhere offering. Stephenson also stressed AT&T’s focus on connected cars. Some 10 million automobiles being manufactured by Ford will come equipped with AT&T connectivity between now and 2020, he said. AT&T is also looking at the massive used car market, he said. “I have a sports car, an old sports car, that I now have connected to the Internet and it's actually a fairly elegant solution,” Stephenson said.

The FCC extended the filing window for short-form applications to bid in the forward TV incentive auction by a single day. The window was supposed to open Tuesday, but that didn’t happen with the federal government shuttered due to the weekend snow storm. Instead, government agencies opened at noon Wednesday, said a public notice. Potential bidders also got an extra day to file -- Form 175 applications are now due at 6 p.m. Feb. 10, the agency said.

Israel-based Just in Case is releasing its "flagship" product, a “slim, elegantly designed” case for the iPhone that records calls and in-person conversations, it said Tuesday. The cases comes in red, blue, yellow, white and black and are being offered at an early bird price of $29.99, with release likely in May, Just in Case said. “Ever been on a phone call and wished you could press ‘record’ to save that conversation forever?” the company said in a news release. “A Phone call with your sick relative re-telling a beloved story, a really long conference call when you are under-caffeinated, or even a chat with a shady apartment manager who keeps denying you've spoken about a leak.”

Sony will pay about $212 million to buy Israeli-based chip maker Altair Semiconductor to boost its presence in the LTE components market, Sony said in a Tuesday announcement. Altair, which has a work force of about 220 and subsidiaries in the U.S., China and Taiwan, owns LTE modem chip technology and related software, Sony said. Altair’s modem chips “stand out for their low power consumption, high performance and competitive cost,” it said. LTE is expected to play “a pivotal role” in IoT interconnections, it said. Through the acquisition, Sony’s goal is to expand Altair's existing business, but also to move forward with R&D on new IoT “sensing technologies” and develop “a new breed of cellular-connected, sensing component devices,” it said. “With the markets for wearable and IoT devices expected to continue to expand, Sony aims to deliver component devices that feature both sensing and communication capabilities, as well as new LTE solutions that leverage the strengths of these component devices.”