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.

The FCC should be “wary” of proposals to allow wireless microphone use in spectrum bands “that may present future opportunities for flexible, mobile broadband use,” CTIA said in a letter Monday to the FCC in docket 12-268. CTIA cited specifically the FCC’s look at such bands as the 1435-1525 MHz band for commercial wireless services. “To the extent the Commission does consider such bands, the Commission should resist calls to substantially increase the allocation to wireless microphone use,” CTIA said. “For example, granting wireless microphone access to the entire 1.4 GHz band would result in significant increase in the amount of spectrum beyond the capacity that may be lost in the 600 MHz band. In effect, such a proposal would replace capabilities present in the current regulations -- twelve megahertz of spectrum capacity -- with access to 90 megahertz.”

Stifel Nicolaus initiated coverage of Sprint and T-Mobile Friday with hold ratings for both. Stifel said it saw little prospect regulators will warm to a merger between the two. Analysts cited questions about T-Mobile’s ability to buy more low-band spectrum and continuing threats from Verizon and AT&T, which will be "ramping up marketing of mobile video services” this year. “We continue to believe that [Sprint] remains at an operational disadvantage to both Verizon and AT&T,” the report said. “Although the recent shutdown of its IDEN [integrated digital enhanced network], in combination with its larger Network Vision strategy should drive margins higher over the course of the next several years, we believe the company will continue to struggle to add a significant number of postpaid subscribers in the near-term.”

Policymakers have had enough of T-Mobile’s requests for preferred treatment in the TV incentive auction and are just saying no to a larger spectrum reserve -- spectrum set aside for competitors without extensive low-band holdings in a particular market -- Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter alleged Friday in a blog post. T-Mobile CEO John Legere has made the issue a top regulatory priority for the carrier (see 1507020057). “After Periscoping his way through Washington, John Legere has left a path of alienation in his wake,” Spalter wrote. “Rather than declaring victory for convincing the FCC to block national rivals AT&T and Verizon from bidding on up to 30 MHz of prime spectrum in the upcoming broadcast spectrum auctions, Legere is seeking to publicly bully the commission into giving his company right of first refusal over even more bandwidth and at an even steeper discount.” T-Mobile is not responding to Spalter, a spokesman said.

Notifications on cellphones inevitably impair a person’s ability to focus on a given task, said a new Florida State University study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. “The level of how much it affected the task at hand was really shocking,” said Courtney Yehnert, an FSU research coordinator. “Although these notifications are generally short in duration, they can prompt task-irrelevant thoughts, or mind-wandering, which has been shown to damage task performance,” the paper said. “Cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupt performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants do not directly interact with a mobile device during the task.”