A Deutsche Telekom spokesman Tuesday denied a report in the New York Post that DT CEO Timotheus Hoettges has made clear he would prefer a deal with Sprint to one with Dish Network. Hoettges said it in a meeting with investors at an RBC Capital Markets road show in Toronto last week, the tabloid reported. The paper “asked us to confirm a couple of statements” from Hoettges at the conference, the spokesman said in an email. “We did not do so because they were false.” DT is the majority owner of T-Mobile USA. Industry observers said last week a DT/Dish deal likely would pass muster with U.S. regulators if it is proposed (see 1506040051). T-Mobile CEO John Legere was in Washington Tuesday for a series of meetings on Capitol Hill and at the FCC, he said on social media.

Wireless carriers have the technological capacity to curb prank calls to 911 from “nonservice-initialized” (NSI) handsets, the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) said in comments filed in FCC docket 08-51. Most carriers support an agency proposal that it drop a requirement that calls from NSI phones must go through to public safety answering points (PSAPs) (see 1504020047). Carriers could require that these phones be registered with the owner’s name and forward this information with the call to the PSAPs, NASNA said. Carriers also have the “technical means” to block just fraudulent calls, it said. These two solutions, “had they been implemented, could have resolved the fraudulent NSI call issue long ago," the group said. One NASNA member describes prank calls to PSAPs as a “plague,” the association said. “Accidental 911 calls may be lower than in the past since today’s smart phones do not have an ‘emergency call’ feature available from the lock screen like they used to, but it is no more difficult to make a fraudulent 911 call from a smart phone than from any other cellular device.”

The U.S. delegation should push for an agenda item on spectrum for unmanned aerial systems at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019, Nokia Networks said in comments posted by the FCC Tuesday. WRC-15 is to start Nov. 2 in Geneva and one of the items will be a look at whether spectrum for drones should be taken up at the following meeting (see 1505200052). The FCC WRC Advisory Committee has been unable to reach consensus on that question. The U.S. “has been investing heavily” in the sector “including for the delivery of broadband communications to underserved, rural, and remote areas and areas suffering from disasters,” Nokia said. It said the U.S. shouldn't ignore the need for more globally harmonized spectrum for broadband. “The amount of spectrum required to support mobile broadband services is expanding exponentially,” Nokia said. “Correspondingly increasing is the desirability for the existing and newly identified spectrum to be harmonized globally across frequency range, channel plans, and emissions requirements.” The filing was in docket 04-286.

Collision avoidance systems should be standard on all new passenger and commercial vehicles, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a report released Monday. NTSB said only four of 684 passenger vehicle models in 2014 came with a complete forward-collision avoidance system as a standard feature. “You don’t pay extra for your seatbelt,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a news release. “And you shouldn’t have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether.” The FCC is examining whether Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices can also safely use the 5850-5925 MHz band, dedicated to vehicle-to-vehicle crash avoidance systems. Cisco has been working with automakers on a “Listen, Detect and Avoid” protocol that would allow shared use of the spectrum (see 1505070051).

The Department of Commerce's Office of Inspector General is starting an audit of FirstNet, said a notice posted by the office. Fieldwork will be conducted at FirstNet’s headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the OIG said. “Our objective will be to assess FirstNet’s effectiveness in addressing federal agency challenges with respect to the development and planned operation” of a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, OIG said.

Correction: The company where James Dunham was chief operating officer was Wireless Zone, the largest independent third-party reseller of Verizon Wireless (see 1506050029).

VTel asked the FCC to deny motions by SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless to “strike” or “dismiss” what SNR and Northstar claim are new “arguments” in the reply VTel filed in in support of its petition to deny their long-form applications for the licenses on which they were the winning bidders in the AWS-3 auction. The two were the designated entities that worked with Dish Network in the AWS-3 auction (see 1505190046). They have defended their work with Dish as falling within the parameters of FCC rules (see 1505190046). “Apparently confused about the Commission’s rules, SNR’s and Northstar’s latest filings are nothing more than a transparent attempt to try to get the last word to which they are not entitled,” VTel said. “Every fact presented and every argument made in VTel’s reply responds directly to issues raised in the oppositions filed by SNR and Northstar, and neither SNR nor Northstar contends otherwise.” VTel, a family-owned phone company in Vermont, was also a bidder in the AWS-3 auction.

If the FCC makes major changes to the designated entity (DE) program, the TV incentive auction could be in no way as big a success as this year's AWS-3 auction, said representatives of DE Council Tree in a meeting with Wireless Bureau staff, including Chief Roger Sherman. The FCC on Monday posted an ex parte filing on the meeting in docket 14-70. If the FCC “were to impose improvident restrictions on the DE program that disable the type of large investor DE alliances which drove Auction 97 to record levels, multiple studies Council Tree has submitted on the record project that revenues generated by the forward auction portion of the upcoming Broadcast Incentive Auction (BIA) would fall dramatically, imperiling the success of the BIA,” Council Tree said. “The fallout and negative repercussions from such a BIA failure would be immense.” Imposing restrictions on DEs could cut revenue from the auction in half, Council Tree warned. “Its likely impact will begin to be felt ahead of the BIA as broadcasters learn of and focus on the negative impacts of the DE-disabling proposals.” Partnerships with investors have always been part of the DE program, the DE said. These partnerships are critical to helping the program meet its statutory mandate of “widely disseminating licenses among all geographic markets, promoting competition, and avoiding license concentration,” Council Tree said.

Former chief operating officer of Wireless Zone, the largest independent third-party reseller of Verizon Wireless, James Dunham, 59, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston after he was arrested and charged in February with selling confidential business information about the wireless industry to an analyst at a Boston-based financial services firm, said the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in a news release. It said Thursday that Dunham is to be sentenced Sept. 3. The office said that for more than two years, Dunham provided confidential information, including the status of certain product launches, the number of new subscribers to a specific wireless provider, and information for specific smartphones, in return for $2,000 per month. “Mr. Dunham abused his position and violated his duty to his employer, customers, and shareholders by stealing business secrets for personal gain,” said Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Field Office Vincent Lisi. The maximum sentence Dunham could receive is up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of either $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, said the bureau.

LTE deployment continues to grow rapidly, with nearly 635 million total connections worldwide as of Q1, 4G Americas said Friday. That's a 151 percent increase year-over-year, the group said. In North America, 44 percent of mobile connections are LTE, compared with 9 percent worldwide, 4G Americas said. “North America continues to prove its leadership in LTE with metrics such as population coverage, share of market and penetration,” said Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas. “This foreshadows the future of mobile broadband in the Americas and the important influence that LTE carries as it helps lay the foundation for 5G in 2020 and beyond.” There are 68 commercial LTE networks deployed in the U.S. and Canada, with 180 million LTE connections as of March, a gain of 66 million new LTE subscribers in 12 months, the group said.