The weapon of choice in fights over LTE-U/Wi-Fi interoperability is increasingly short cartoons of playground bullies. The cable industry, in its opposition to LTE-U, "is "acting like the bully who got to the playground first and now won't let the new kid play on the playground," Media Freedom said in a YouTube video posted Monday in which "Big Cable" is depicted as a unibrowed lunkhead who is shown the value of sharing. The cable industry's opposition to LTE-U is all about fear of competition from a better wireless service under the pretext of worries about Wi-Fi interference, Media Freedom said in a companion blog Monday. "Tests clearly show that LTE-U coexists and 'plays nicely' with Wi-Fi," said the free-market advocacy group in part funded by the communications industry. "The cable industry claims otherwise, and is using every excuse in the book to delay its implementation, going so far as to urge the FCC ‘to act’ and ensure the ‘right standards’ are in place, basically regulating unregulated unlicensed spectrum where innovation has flourished." The "bully" tag and playground setting are almost identical to language and imagery language the WifiForward coalition used in a video it put out earlier this month (see 1509090046) as it raised concerns about Wi-Fi interference from LTE-U.

CTIA and representatives of its member companies met with FCC officials to discuss a July CTIA petition for reconsideration (see 1507230067) on the agency’s rules for the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. The industry officials discussed the need to provide priority access license holders with renewal expectancy and address “longer license terms, power limitations” and the auction process for the licenses. CTIA also recommended that the commission encourage the multistakeholder group Wireless Innovation Forum to determine a minimum set of data to be delivered to an external spectrum access system (SAS) to perform its functions, the association said in a filing posted Friday in docket 12-354. “We further recommended that the Commission ensure that SAS operators internally cabin off any data from other portions of their respective business, and prohibit them from using this data for any purpose other than for operation of the SAS.”

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam responded to a barrage of disparaging comments by T-Mobile CEO John Legere in recent weeks (see 1509180053). During a CNBC interview Thursday, which a Verizon spokesman pointed us to for comment Friday, McAdam dismissed Legere's comments -- which have frequently included referring to both Verizon and AT&T as "dumb and dumber." To "be honest, I don't pay any attention to it," McAdam said. "You know, I think it has worked for him. That is part of the persona of [T-Mobile]. I think if our customers and our investors, if I tried to do that, would look at me like I was crazy." Verizon is focused on customers' needs, as well as network and product improvements, he said. "We are doing a pretty good job at that and we will stay that course."

The Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Coalition asked the FCC to allocate more spectrum for unmanned aerial systems (UAS), said a filing in the FCC docket on implementing decisions made at the 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference. The commission should “support innovation and technology leadership in the United States by moving quickly in this proceeding, and others, to ensure that spectrum is available to support the wide range of communications functions that are critical to UAS,” the coalition said. “These functions include but are not limited to aircraft-to-ground, ground-to-aircraft, and aircraft-to-aircraft communications needed for both line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight control links, diagnostics, tracking, collision avoidance and payload communications.” The filing was posted Friday in docket 14-177.

CTIA asked for FCC permission to withdraw a 2001 petition for reconsideration of a 2000 order adopting the 211 and 511 abbreviated dialing code requirements for wireless carriers. The filing was posted Friday in docket 92-105.

Ericsson extended its Wi-Fi calling to a multidevice platform, the company said in a news release. The functionality of the new service enables operators to make voice calls on Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as tablets and personal computers, Ericsson said Thursday.

The FirstNet board plans two days of meetings, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, at the Powell Federal Building in Reston, Virginia, said a notice in Thursday's Federal Register. FirstNet’s committees are to meet the first day, starting at 8 a.m., the notice said. The full board meets the second day, also starting at 8 a.m.

A voucher-based system “would be inappropriate for Lifeline,” said TracFone CEO F.J. Pollak and others from the low-cost carrier in meetings with Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and others at the FCC, said filings posted in docket 11-42. It would “impose unnecessary burdens” on low-income households in order to continue to receive Lifeline service, the carrier said. TracFone also counseled against limiting the program to those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, one proposal being examined by the FCC.

AT&T is now covering 310 million POPs in the U.S. with “high-quality LTE coverage” capable of providing video “just like our broadband wired networks are,” Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. Stephens said the DirecTV buy gives AT&T an advantage over its main rivals. “Dish [Network] isn't going to have the broadband capability, so they're not going to have the owner's economics over wireless,” he said. “Verizon is not going to have the broadband capabilities. They don't have the satellite or the scale in delivering and negotiating with content providers.” Stephens also said he welcomes a move by Apple to start allowing customers to buy iPhones through extended payments. “Quite simply from a very somewhat selfish viewpoint, if the handset manufacturers want to take the responsibility for the $600 financing and it doesn't have to go on our balance sheet, that's not necessarily a bad thing for us at all,” he said Wednesday. “We sell a lot more iPhones on our accounts than Apple does. … I think they have about 200 stores, we have about 2,300.” Stephens said AT&T is making a $3 billion investment in the Mexican wireless market and expects to cover 40 million POPS by the end of the year with LTE. “Those will be the ones that certainly were easier to do in denser areas and higher revenue opportunities,” Stephens said. “We are looking forward to growing customers both in the prepaid and the postpaid base, but I want to tell you that the success is also going to be in how much we attract in the U.S. business and how much more business we get from U.S. consumers and business customers who want to do business in Mexico.”

Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better for smartphone battery performance, Strategy Analytics said in a report. The research firm tested the battery performance of “flagship” smartphones from Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony and found that the smartphones with the largest battery capacities didn’t provide the longest battery life, it said Wednesday. “Battery life is consistently one of the most important aspects taken into consideration when a consumer purchases a new smartphone” and also is one of the biggest sources of “smartphone owner dissatisfaction,” it said.