AT&T is getting rid of two-year contracts, the way subscribers historically tied themselves to a wireless carrier, said an internal document posted Wednesday by website Engadget. The document said new and existing customers will be able to get new devices only by paying the full price upfront or by buying it in installments over time. The change kicks in Jan. 8. An AT&T spokesman confirmed the development. “With $0 down for well-qualified customers, the ability to upgrade early and down payment options available with even lower monthly installments, our customers are overwhelmingly choosing AT&T Next," the spokesman emailed. "Starting January 8, AT&T Next will be the primary way to get a new smartphone at AT&T. This does not apply to business customers under a qualified wireless service agreement.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Maryland want the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to uphold a lower court decision that suppressed evidence that police obtained using a cell-site simulator without getting a warrant. Both EFF and ACLU wrote blog posts Tuesday about the case, which they said is possibly the first in the nation where a judge threw out evidence obtained through these devices. Commonly known as Stingrays, the simulators mimic cellphone towers and trick all nearby phones to connect to them, and the signals can be used to locate individuals (see 1510210060). The three groups filed an amicus brief in support of Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Kendra Ausby, who ruled Aug. 20 that the Baltimore Police Department's use of a Hailstorm cellphone surveillance device violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, and ordered information generated from the device be suppressed. The government appealed. ACLU Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler wrote that there's "extreme secrecy" about Stingray use, largely due to the FBI imposing a nondisclosure agreement on local police. "The ruling is important because it is the latest example of judges taking their role seriously, and pushing back against law enforcement’s wanton disregard for constitutional limits on their surveillance activities and their duty of candor to the courts," he wrote. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch wrote that it's vital that police not only get a warrant based on probable cause in using such a device, "but also commit to minimization procedures, including immediately deleting information about all phones not covered by the warrant and limiting the time period during which the device is used."

The FCC Wireless Bureau had two late Christmas presents for AT&T Wednesday, approving the carrier's buy of low-band 700 MHz spectrum licenses in Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. The first order approved AT&T’s acquisition of six C-block and two B-block licenses in Michigan from Agri-Valley Communications. The deal required extra scrutiny under the FCC’s mobile holdings order because it would give AT&T more than one-third of the low-band spectrum available in six of the seven local market areas covered, the bureau said. “We find that the proposed assignment of licenses would serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity, and therefore we approve the proposed assignments,” the bureau said in the order. The two companies sought FCC approval in May. The bureau also approved AT&T’s buy of a 700 MHz B-block and PCS A-block license covering all or parts of three local market areas in New York and Pennsylvania from NEP. The deal required additional scrutiny because it gives AT&T more than one-third of the low-band spectrum in one of the markets. The bureau also found that buy wouldn't harm competition. The transaction had been in front of the FCC since June.

Wireless carriers represented by the Blooston, Mordkofsky law firm said they support a petition filed by Bulloch Cellular, Pineland Cellular and Planters Rural Cellular seeking changes to the FCC’s incentive auction rules (see 1512010046). The companies said the FCC should tweak the rules since they wrongly limit eligibility for rural credits for the auction. The Blooston rural carriers agree with the petitions “that it would be a good idea for the Commission to more explicitly clarify that the Rural Service Provider Bidding Credit will be available if the owners of the bidding entity are rural service providers,” provided that "the applicant together with its controlling interests, affiliates, and the affiliates of its controlling interests has fewer than 250,000 combined wireless, wireline, broadband and cable subscribers; and these entities serve predominantly rural areas, defined as counties with a population density of 100 or fewer persons per square mile,” the firm said. The filing was posted Tuesday in docket 12-269.

CTIA highlighted the role its members play in pushing the envelope on mobile health and said in comments to the FDA that the wireless industry is well aware of the importance of protecting consumer privacy. The filing was on part of an agency request for comments on “Using Technologies and Innovative Methods to Conduct Food and Drug Administration-Regulated Clinical Investigations of Investigational Drugs.” The average U.S. home has 5.3 connected devices and Americans use more than 11.1 billion MBs of mobile data every day, CTIA said. “The ubiquity of powerful mobile devices, along with their ever-expanding array of sophisticated features and availability of health-related software, creates opportunities to revolutionize clinical trials.” CTIA cited AT&T’s work with the Garrison Geriatric Education and Care Center at Texas Tech University to provide connectivity to embedded pressure sensors and accelerometers in shoe inserts, which gather data in a fall-risk study. Duke University is using Verizon-enabled activity monitors and glucometers to analyze the impact of physical activity on participants with peripheral arterial disease, CTIA said. CTIA and its members understand the importance of protecting patient privacy, the wireless association said. “Protecting clinical trial participant data privacy is a top priority for the wireless industry, which implements a variety of options for consumers to choose when and with whom they share data. More generally, our industry participates in ongoing dialogue with policymakers, privacy advocates, and the health sector to ensure compliance with applicable regulations and norms aimed at protecting health data privacy.” Comments were in docket FDA-201-N-3579.

The New York City Department of Emergency Management (NYCEM) told the FCC it supports proposed changes to the FCC wireless emergency alert rules, in a filing in response to a notice approved by the commission at its November meeting (see 1511190053). The FCC is correct to recommend longer emergency messages, the department said. “It is NYCEM’s position that 90-character messages are wholly insufficient to provide the level of information needed by the public in order to understand the scope of the emergency and take necessary precautions,” NYCEM said. NYCEM cited two examples. “Due to an active shooter incident at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan, all individuals between West 45th Street and West 35th Street between 6th Avenue and 9th Avenue should move indoors now and stay indoors until further notice,” is the kind of warning possible if the FCC allows up to 360 characters, the department said. It's clearer than “Shooter near 42St/7Ave, MN. People nearby should go indoors and wait for more info,” it said. NYCEM also supports a proposal to lift a ban on including phone numbers and URLs in emergency texts, but with a caveat: “The Commission should caution alert originators to ensure that the website and/or telephone number that they are directing people to for more information (e.g., government websites, 311 systems, etc.) are prepared to handle the rapid influx of network and/or telephony traffic.” NYCEM also said the FCC should require carriers to target their messages within a smaller geographic area. The filing was posted in docket 15-91.

FCC proposals to protect grandfathered 3650 MHz-3700 MHz base stations from harmful interference from Citizens Broadband Radio Service users in the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band don’t go far enough, the American Petroleum Institute said in comments filed at the FCC. Comments were due Monday on the protection framework and protection criteria during the transition to spectrum sharing. “API believes that the FCC protection boundary proposal in this docket is less than adequate for over half of the use cases for existing equipment,” the oil and gas association said. “Examples of unregistered operations around a registered base station that would be affected by the FCC proposal include such things as support vessels in the Gulf of Mexico that surround a platform, or mobile work locations within an oil field.” API sought tighter limits on interference. The Utilities Telecom Council also sought tougher protections for utility operations in the band. UTC said the rules should protect customer premises equipment (CPE) farther than the 4.4 km from the center coordinates of the base station proposed by the FCC. “Second, the Grandfathered Wireless Protection Zone should extend in all directions around the center coordinates of the base station, not just to those sectors where there is existing CPE.” The comments were in docket 12-354. Google also encouraged the FCC to develop an approach that protects incumbents from interference. Google proposed the FCC establish as an aggregate received signal strength limit of -95 dBm/MHz (or -85dBm/10 MHz) at locations where equipment is located “rather than creating inefficient protection zones.” Companies with equipment that must be protected during the transition should also have to register with a database, Google said in its comments.

Comments on an Oct. 30 NPRM on proposed changes to FCC hearing aid compatibility rules are due Feb. 26, replies March 28, said a notice published Monday in the Federal Register. “The proposed changes would expand the scope of the wireline HAC rules, add a volume control requirement for wireless handsets, address recently revised technical standards, and streamline the process for enabling industry to use new or revised technical standards for assessing HAC compliance,” the notice said.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam demonstrated a version of 5G to the company’s board in November, McAdam said in an interview with Business Insider. “You don't ever go to a board with something that's not real,” he said. “We'll be piloting it more broadly. San Francisco, we'll be there. We'll have it in New York. We'll have it in Boston.” McAdam said he expects to launch 5G service at Verizon’s Basking Ridge, New Jersey, campus in January, with commercial deployment to follow later in the year.

The Wireless Innovation Forum told the FCC that the WIF Spectrum Sharing Committee is recommending changes to an FCC proposal for rules for the protected contours for grandfathered licensees in the 3.5 GHz band as the FCC launches the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). The task force’s “general consensus” is that the commission’s proposed two-pronged approach “is not sufficiently effective at protecting” wireless ISP operations and may block CBRS deployments. “This approach does not, for example, explicitly take into account protection of [wireless Internet service providers] base stations, which are typically mounted at high sites with good visibility to surrounding areas,” the forum said. “In this case, the FCC’s implicit assumption that the received signal strength at the base station from a CBRS device outside a boundary must be less than the signal strength at the boundary is not necessarily correct.” The comments were posted in docket 12-354.