T-Mobile USA said Tuesday it’s adding new hosted and on-premises MobileIron mobile device management (MDM) services to its portfolio. The new MDM services will make it easier for businesses “to manage and secure mobile devices, content and mobile applications running on different operating systems” by offering flexible service choices, T-Mobile said. MDM will become a larger business over the next few years as mobile devices become “ubiquitous” in business environments, said researcher Stephen Drake, IDC program vice president-mobility enterprise, in a T-Mobile news release. “As a result, companies are looking for ways to both manage these mobile devices and mitigate possible security risks,” he said. “Simultaneously, mobile operators, like T-Mobile, are continuing to assess their mobile enterprise offerings in an effort to help companies find their ‘best fit’ and allow them to deploy solutions quickly and cost effectively.” T-Mobile said it’s also partnering with Mission Critical Wireless, a Digital Management subsidiary, to provide “around-the-clock” managed service and mobile help desk support (http://xrl.us/bogiwn).
AT&T, CenturyLink, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and other industry representatives separately spoke by phone with officials from the FCC’s Wireless and Wireline bureaus late last week and Monday about the commission’s proposed changes to the Form 477 competition and broadband data collection process, the companies said in separate ex parte filings. Potential changes FCC officials outlined Friday with AT&T included: changing the number of speed tiers, “providing the Commission “shape files” for wireless services depicting the relevant technologies, frequency bands and maximum advertised speeds,” providing aggregated wireless device data that reflect the highest device speed capabilities, reporting national machine-to-machine wireless device counts and reporting data on wireless devices sold in a bundle with wireline services (http://bit.ly/WizboB). CenturyLink and FCC officials Thursday discussed “the burdens of more granular reporting requirements, including how to make distinctions between services that are residential and those that are business, and potential submission of information on a confidential basis,” said John Benedict, CenturyLink vice president-federal regulatory affairs (http://bit.ly/XyGlCG). Sprint committed during its call to FCC officials “to produce such data,” but said “the additional data and changes to the existing format of the data would increase the burden on carriers.” FCC officials also discussed continuing to provide the mapping information that carriers submit semi-annually to NTIA for its Broadband Map. Sprint representatives told the FCC “that it is time consuming to produce the maps. We agreed with staff that preparing a single nationwide map would be less time-consuming than the current state-by-state mapping,” said Marybeth Banks, Sprint government affairs director (http://bit.ly/V4nBAu). T-Mobile said Friday during its call “it agrees that a single process for providing broadband adoption and deployment data on a nationwide basis likely would be preferable to the current FCC reporting that requires collecting data at the census tract level and having to file a separate report for each state.” FCC officials outlined its proposed changes and noted “that carrier involvement in collaborating on beta tests is a possibility,” said Indra Sehdev Chalk, T-Mobile principal corporate counsel-federal regulatory affairs (http://bit.ly/VPPQmt). Industry representatives from NTCA, the Western Telecommunications Alliance, Alpine Communications, Blackfoot Communications and Enhanced Telecommunications jointly spoke with FCC officials Monday on the proposed Form 477 changes, NTCA Economist Richard Schadelbauer said Tuesday in a filing. The industry representatives said changing the rules to distinguish between residential and non-residential services “would likely double the overall data reporting burden,” Schadelbauer said. FCC officials told the representatives a proposed new tool that aids in geocoding could ease some of their concerns (http://bit.ly/159r3vr).
Carriers will need at least two years to build out their lower 700 MHz A- and B-block licenses after the FCC concludes its interoperability proceeding, the Competitive Carriers Association told FCC Wireless Bureau officials on Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/X5nxvt). CCA asked that responses to its members’ requests for waivers and extensions give at least that much time. CCA and the commission also discussed timing for when a decision on the requests may be issued. According to CCA, “the Commission acknowledged that carriers need to promptly make business decisions related to their licenses, including whether or not to purchase equipment to execute build-outs independent of an interoperable Lower 700 MHz band or their long-standing business models."
The FCC should assess all voice service providers’ regulatory fees on the basis of revenue, and use updated fee methodology to ensure that fees are applied in a competitively neutral manner, the Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) told FCC officials Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/X5o6Fq). Providers of wireless services should be included in the International Telecommunications Service Provider category, ITTA said. Wireline providers are at a competitive disadvantage compared to wireless providers, as they face “an ever-increasing fee burden on a declining revenue and subscriber base,” the alliance said. By ensuring that fee collections from each category are more closely aligned to actual costs, the commission can ensure regulatory fee burdens are equitable and do not distort the marketplace, ITTA said.
The FCC’s technology transitions task force should strive to “provide a nondiscriminatory framework so that no company benefits from special treatment or obtains a head start on the IP transition process,” Level 3 and Bandwidth.com told FCC officials Thursday, an ex parte filing said (http://bit.ly/YoxUum). Before the commission struggles with difficult decisions relating to IP interconnection, it should first institute a rulemaking to address the 15 petitions it has received seeking direct access to number resources, the CLECs said. “If the Commission were to allow the near-term issuance of number resources to non-carrier providers through an ad hoc and discriminatory waiver process, it may find it difficult to rationalize the waivers at a later date with other critical decisions,” they said. A notice of proposed rulemaking would help the transitions task force “ensure that the many interrelated CLEC Coalition concerns relating to IP interconnection, intercarrier compensation, number exhaust, number portability, and call routing are addressed in a comprehensive manner,” they said. If the commission does intend to allow direct assignment of number resources to the non-carrier providers, a rulemaking would be necessary to fully review the statutory framework as it would apply to such providers, the CLECs said.
There’s “huge interest” in adult content on mobile phones, SGM Media CEO Andy Wullmer told us. Earlier this month, he bought Mobile.xxx from ICM Registry for $160,000 and plans to dedicate the site to offering the first all-encompassing .xxx destination for mobile devices, the registry said. SGM (SexGoesMobile) offers only legal adult content, and owns all the rights to the material, Wullmer said. But since all the products use direct telephone billing through the phone provider, it never shows hardcore content, he said. In most European countries SGM shows only softcore video material, which falls under the Pan European Game Information rating “16” -- applied to content where the depiction of sexual activity “looks the same as would be expected in real life” (http://xrl.us/bn9dgo) -- while in most Asian and Arabic nations it shows only glamour video and images, he said. In the U.S., there’s only a dating platform which requires user registration and a credit card for age verification. The experience of SexGoesMobile.com, SGM’s best-known product, shows an enormous interest in accessing adult material on mobile, he said: Mobile phones are still very private spaces, unlike a PC at home. SGM is seeing more than 30,000 sales a day through its global affiliates, he said. In addition, a trawl through Google Mobile Search and keywords shows that sex and porn are the most often used search terms, he said. “With the newest generation of smartphones and the fast distribution worldwide the market is already big and growing very fast,” he said. Asked whether and how the registry will ensure that adult content is segregated on mobile.xxx, CEO Stuart Lawley said: “We don’t.” All the .xxx suffix does is indicate the likelihood of the kind of content to be found on an underlying website, he told us. All active .xxx sites are owned by validated members of the worldwide adult entertainment industry, he said. Sale of mobile.xxx hasn’t triggered any complaints or concerns, unlike the turmoil the .xxx top-level domain (TLD) created, he said. Asked how the TLD is doing, Lawley said, “Just fine.” Domain name registration renewals “came out in line with expectations so .xxx performance in comparison with other newly introduced TLDs compares very favorably.”
A recent request for proposals from the North Carolina Next Generation Network may help meet FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Gigabit City Challenge for that state. The network is slated to include six communities -- Carrboro, Carry, Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, all of which approved the network last month -- and several universities -- the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke, North Carolina State and Wake Forest and Baptist Medical Center. The joint parties issued a request for proposals (http://xrl.us/bogie2) earlier this month, with responses due April 2, looking for vendors to help create a gigabit fiber network, an open access architectural framework, a “flexible menu of optional retail services,” all while making use of public-private assets and offering high-speed Internet, either wired or wireless, at a “substantial discount from current market prices,” according to the RFP. “Ultra-fast Internet speeds will spur innovators to develop next-generation apps and services that drive economic growth and U.S. competitiveness,” Genachowski said in a statement Monday. He said the announcement will “move us forward.” Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin said earlier this month: “The NC NGN is the first regional effort to grow out of the Gig.U initiative. ... It builds on lessons learned from Gig.U and other related projects, offering potential providers both access to inputs that help lower deployment costs and the scale necessary for economic success."
Don’t require carriers to provide bounce-back messages until six months after any order mandating it, the Competitive Carriers Association told the FCC in text-to-911 replies posted Monday. “The Commission should not require carriers to send error notifications in all instances, but at this time should only require bounce-back messages when a carrier has not yet deployed text-to-911 capability on its home network in the area where the subscriber is attempting to text 911,” the CCA said (http://bit.ly/VbKsrm). Education will need to start local, and the FCC’s move to text-to-911 will need to be aware of “limitations faced by rural and regional carriers in implementing this regime (including error notifications) and do not require more of carriers than what is technically feasible,” it said. Yet speed is vital, said the Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority. The FCC “should not brook the delays and game-playing by service providers that marked the transition to Wireless E9-1-1,” it said (http://bit.ly/VPRx3j). “The Commission must require that service providers implement text-to-9-1-1 without exception.” The authority supports a standard bounce-back message: “Providing a standard message when text messaging-to-9-1-1 is not available or a text message to 9-1-1 is not received will limit consumer confusion.”
Cablevision said its broadband service was the fastest of any “major ISP” on Netflix’s monthly rankings. Only Google Fiber delivered faster Netflix streams to subscribers in January, according to the Netflix list (http://nflx.it/12mRYj1). “We have a direct connection with the online video provider that ensures superior viewing and more extensive content than any of our competitors can deliver,” said Gemma Toner, senior vice president of Cablevision’s broadband product management, referring to Netflix’s Open Connect content delivery network.
High prison phone call rates affect not only prisons but the Missouri State Public Defender. “Our experience is that such costs are extremely high -- far higher than rates we are able to find when we have the ability to select a phone carrier ourselves,” Director Cat Kelly told the FCC in a letter posted Monday (http://bit.ly/WFft8h). “Prisoners are literally a captive audience with no ability to select a phone carrier; the carrier is chosen for them, and, thus, us.” The defender has had to limit the number of collect calls it receives, she said. Many calls are under a minute, but they together still cost the office more than $75,000 a year, Kelly said.