Online banking and shopping apps raise the most privacy concerns for users, said a new mobile privacy study from privacy certification firm TRUSTe. The study -- based on a Harris Interactive June online survey of 705 U.S. smartphone-using adults -- found that 78 percent of users “won’t download an app they don’t trust,” and 63 percent of users “are frequently or always concerned about privacy” when banking online, and 60 percent of users share those levels of privacy concerns when shopping online. More than two-thirds -- 69 percent -- of users do not like the idea of their smartphone activity being tracked by mobile advertisers, and 31 percent of users are not aware that such tracking takes place, according to the survey. Overall, “smartphone users are showing an increased willingness to share personal data” as compared to the same study from 2012, the release said: “76 percent of those surveyed responded that they are ultimately responsible for protecting their own privacy."

TrustComm expanded its portfolio to include mobile satellite services. It recently upgraded its teleport and secure teleport and network operations centers and it’s using partnerships with Inmarsat and Thuraya to carry out the expansion, TrustComm said in a news release (http://bit.ly/15z4nlR). TrustComm also is distributing Cobham Satcom’s full line of satellite and radio communication terminals and earth stations, and it entered into a strategic relationship with Boeing “for the provision of Inmarsat-4 services for specialized user groups,” it said.

A revised version of the standard for the Personal Identification Verification (PIV) Card that federal employees and contractors use to enter government facilities includes “enhanced support for mobile devices,” the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said Thursday. The revised PIV Card standard “provides a stronger authentication credential,” NIST said in a news release. The revised PIV standard includes innovations adopted since the original standard was adopted in 2005, including a derived PIV credential option that can be used on mobile devices, an optional on-card fingerprint comparison capability, the use of a person’s iris pattern as an optional biometric, secure messaging through a protected channel between cards and remote credential updating. The original PIV standard required all PIV cards to include an integrated circuit chip that stored electronic credentials and biometric data like fingerprint specifics and a photograph, NIST said (http://1.usa.gov/17HdZx3).

The low number of calls with wireless Phase II location information delivered to five public safety answering points in California stems from the “fact that these PSAPs never actually requested updated Phase II locations for the vast majority of 911 calls,” T-Mobile said in an FCC filing (http://bit.ly/17HRxUq). T-Mobile executives met with the Public Safety Bureau Wednesday to discuss an ex parte filing by CalNENA on Aug. 12 that showed a significant drop in wireless Phase II location data reporting by five major wireless carriers to the PSAPs (CD Aug 14 p4). Based on T-Mobile’s analysis of 911 calls placed to the five California PSAPs from January to July 2013, the firm said there’s no problem with the availability of wireless Phase II location data, with data available for 90 percent of calls more than 30 seconds long and 86 percent for calls over five seconds long, said the carrier. The standard implementation of wireless Phase II information specifies a PSAP should re-bid when updated location information is required, and the five PSAPs didn’t re-bid for location on 79 percent of the 911 calls routed by T-Mobile, said the company. If the PSAPs want to “solve the problem,” T-Mobile said the PSAPs can design their systems to automatically re-bid for location after an appropriate amount of time if they want to “pull the updated location data” more consistently. Short calls should have been excluded from the CalNENA filing because they are “unlikely to be emergencies,” said T-Mobile. Twenty-one percent of calls to these PSAPs were under five seconds, 32 percent under 15 seconds and 44 percent under 30 seconds, said T-Mobile. CalNENA did not immediately comment.

The retransmission dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable (CD Sept 4 p2) presented one of the most “politically-appealing invitations for the government to second guess the path of a free market retrans negotiation,” a broadcast attorney said. And “the government declined to do so,” wrote Scott Flick of Pillsbury Winthrop in a blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/14GnEmy). Having seen the government’s lack of enthusiasm for getting involved, “parties to retrans negotiations will hopefully be able to retire ’threatening to involve the government’ as a negotiating tactic,” he said. While blackouts will inevitably still happen from time to time, the legacy of this dispute is that “it should no longer happen because one party thinks that if it delays enough, or causes enough of a public stir over a retrans dispute, the FCC will come to its rescue,” he said: “The result will be better for all, including subscribers."

The FCC should not impose restrictions on the ability of any carriers to buy licenses in the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, said a new paper by the Progressive Policy Institute, authored by antitrust lawyer David Balto, a former FTC assistant policy director, and economist Hal Singer. “Barring some other social objective that might be sacrificed, it would be a mistake to permit the narrow, self-interests of smaller carriers to dictate spectrum policy that has nationwide implications in broader product markets,” the paper said (http://bit.ly/1dVs9Sc). “For these reasons, we conclude that the FCC should not prevent current owners of low-frequency spectrum from competing in the upcoming incentive auction. The most likely reason for their participating in the auction is not to hoard spectrum, as intimated by the [Department of Justice], but instead to relieve capacity constraints that could force price increases to manage congestion.” None of PPI’s work is specifically paid for by any one group or person, a spokesman said.

The FCC created an interactive map to showcase areas containing up to 600,000 homes and businesses, to be funded by the Connect America Fund’s second round of money. The map focuses on both the “census block level” and “the big-picture overview” of these locations, the agency said in a press release Thursday (http://fcc.us/152ArlI). Providers requested $385 million in CAF money last month, with commitments to deploy broadband in the areas by 2016, the FCC said. Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said the map “will provide welcome news to millions of rural Americans who have been waiting far too long for broadband access.” The map also sets up the process by which entities can challenge funding: “The map released today facilitates identification of these areas, where competitors may wish to file challenges to requested Phase I subsidies,” the FCC said. “As a result of this challenge process, the locations currently depicted on the map could change."

West Virginia schools were able to upgrade broadband connections and bring high-speed Internet to 195 schools that lacked access, via an NTIA grant from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), said Laura Dodson, BTOP director-comprehensive communities infrastructure, in a blog post Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1fCCAG1). Dodson said she visited Southside K-8 School in McDowell County, where she saw how the school was using its fiber-based 100 Mbps connection to allow any Southside student to get online. The BTOP grant helped to bring a fiber broadband connection to 750 public elementary and high schools in the state, Dodson wrote. The West Virginia broadband grant helped fund the buildout of 675 network miles and connected more than 1,100 community anchor institutions, said Dodson. Dodson said the grant expanded the number of opportunities for students. “In Grant County, students who couldn’t get online courses they needed to graduate were able to finally fulfill those requirements once improved broadband was installed in the county schools, allowing them to take the classes they needed during the summer,” she wrote. “And at East Bank Middle School in Kanawha County, students and teachers could not use the school’s network at the same time because it lacked the necessary bandwidth until the NTIA-funded grant helped upgrade the schools’ network."

U.S. businesses will spend more than $49 billion over the next five years on ethernet services, Insight Research said Wednesday in releasing a study. U.S. business spending on ethernet is expected to nearly reach $5.5 billion this year and will rise to $13 billion in 2018, Insight said. Although ethernet’s top market segment is still wireless backhaul, it’s seeing its fastest growth in the small- to mid-sized business market, Insight said. The small- and mid-sized business market segment will have a 19 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years, said Fran Caulfield, Insight research director, in a news release (http://bit.ly/17wdaVk). A separate Dell'Oro Group report Thursday said the Layer 2-3 ethernet switch market continued to exceed $5 billion in Q2 on demand from cloud providers. That demand is “offsetting delays in Enterprise spending as Enterprises push out the migration from 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Yet, as the Cloud market matures, we believe growth in the data center could likely stall in 2014, and remain on hold until 2015 when Enterprises begin en-masse migration to 10 Gigabit Ethernet,” said Alan Weckel, Dell'Oro Group vice president-Ethernet switch market research, in a news release (http://bit.ly/17SLkIY).

FirstNet hired William Casey, a former Boston Police Department deputy superintendent and 30-year law enforcement veteran, as chief of staff. He’s on detail from the Biometric Center of Excellence. Casey will provide a broad range of analytical, strategic and administrative services in support of the FirstNet senior management team,” said a FirstNet news release. “He will monitor the use of resources, provide project and portfolio management, and report on the status of FirstNet’s ongoing operations, special projects and priority programs."