Samsung and Apple continued to see their share of the mobile phone market rise in November, according to data from comScore. Samsung phones were being used by 26.9 percent of subscribers, while Apple phones were being used by 18.5 percent; LG stood at 17.5 percent, Motorola at 10.4 percent and HTC at 5.9 percent, comScore said. That represented a rise of 1.2 percentage points for Samsung and 1.4 points for Apple from comScore’s August data; LG, Motorola and HTC all saw their market shares drop by less than 1 points, comScore said. Google’s Android mobile operating system continued to grow its majority share in the marketplace, with 53.7 percent of subscribers using it in November; 35 percent of subscribers were using Apple’s iOS, 7.3 percent were using RIM’s BlackBerry and 3 percent were using Microsoft’s Windows Phone, comScore said (http://xrl.us/bn83ut).
Al Jazeera said it agreed to buy Current TV and will change the network into a news channel providing domestic and international news. About 40 percent of all online viewing of Al Jazeera English comes from the U.S., a factor that influenced the company’s decision to expand here, it said. Time Warner Cable promptly terminated its carriage agreement with Current. “We are removing the service as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson said. TWC CEO Glenn Britt said last month the company would take a harder stance against carrying networks that aren’t drawing viewers (CD Dec 4 p3).
Oklatel Communications seeks a waiver of FCC rules requiring eligible telecom carriers to demonstrate annually that they have engaged tribal governments in their universal service supported areas. Oklatel is unable, “as a practical and logical matter,” to meet the tribal engagement obligations, it said, because “the Tribal population served by Oklatel is different than that of typical Tribal lands” (http://xrl.us/bn83tm). The obligations are “inappropriate” as applied to Oklatel because, although the telco serves consumers that are members of federally recognized tribes, it “serves no Tribal ’sovereign institutions,’ ‘Tribal governments,’ or ‘Tribal Councils,'” Oklatel said, quoting the rules. “With zero formal Tribal communities and Tribal governments in its service area, it will be exceedingly difficult for Oklatel to comply with the Commission’s Tribal engagement obligations in any meaningful fashion."
CTIA selected WMC Global to provide technology services for its Latin American short code registry. The registry will accelerate Latin America’s adoption of mobile marketing since mobile campaigns are available to almost the entire population, CTIA said Thursday. The registry model enabled the provisioning of nearly 5,000 short codes in the U.S., generating estimated revenue of $8 billion to $12 billion annually, the association said. The Latin American registry offers five-digit and six-digit codes, and addresses the need for a unified and centralized approach to interacting with Latin America’s 400 million wireless subscribers, CTIA said. “As marketers around the world can attest, short codes are an extremely effective and trusted solution to raise brand awareness through customer participation,” said CTIA President Steve Largent (http://xrl.us/bn83sc).
The FCC International Bureau granted Liberty Media de jure control of Sirius XM. The bureau said in an order (http://xrl.us/bn83o9) the general benefits likely to result from the transfer “provide a sufficient basis to conclude that the transaction will serve the public interest.” The bureau concluded that the opposing comments of former Sirius shareholder Alexander Bergmann (http://xrl.us/bn83qr) don’t warrant further action, it said. Bergmann’s filings “do not contain specific allegations of fact sufficient to show that a grant of the application would be prima facie inconsistent with the public interest,” it said. The bureau said it didn’t receive any other comments in docket 12-282. Liberty Media doesn’t currently provide any media distribution services that directly compete with the satellite services offered by Sirius, it said: The proposed transfer of de jure control “does not present any horizontal competition issues.” Liberty said it plans to own more than 50 percent of Sirius shares within 60 days of commission consent (CD Aug 21 p16). Liberty and Sirius had no further comment.
The 800 MHz rebanding is nearly complete, said a report filed by Sprint Nextel at the FCC, providing the latest update on Sprint’s progress in wrapping up a process that has been under way since 2004. Sprint said 99 percent of all non-border area public safety licensees that must be retuned (or 853 of 855 licensees) have now signed frequency reconfiguration agreements (FRAs) and 97 percent of U.S.-Canada border area public safety licensees which must be retuned (189 of 193 licensees) have signed FRAs (http://xrl.us/bn823c). Sprint has completed the retuning of all non-Sprint, non-Southern LINC Channel 1-120 incumbent licensees in 54 National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee regions. “In the one remaining NPSPAC region (Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands) and one U.S. Territory (Guam) in which Channel 1-120 clearing has not been fully completed, both Regions have only one 1-120 Channel licensee remaining to be retuned or have their FCC licenses modified,” Sprint said. “Phase II of 800 MHz band reconfiguration continues to show ongoing progress. Fourteen NPSPAC Regions are fully complete. All 800 MHz public safety and non-public safety licensees required to be retuned in fourteen NPSPAC Regions -- Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, Alaska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Wyoming and South Dakota NPSPAC Regions [--] have fully completed 800 MHz band reconfiguration efforts.”
The TETRA + Critical Communications Association (TCCA) said the FCC should reject a Motorola Solutions petition for reconsideration of an FCC order on certification and use of Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) technology on certain Part 90 land mobile radio frequencies. “The Motorola Petition raises no new issues, unnecessarily delays the implementation of rules allowing access to TETRA in this country, and should be dismissed immediately,” TCCA said (http://xrl.us/bn822b). But the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials said the Motorola petition raises questions that need to be answered by the FCC. “In particular, Motorola notes an inconsistency between the text of the Report and Order and the text of the adopted rules as to whether TETRA may be deployed on non-NPSPAC [National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee] 800 MHz band channels,” APCO said (http://xrl.us/bn822d). “Public safety frequency coordinators have recently received applications indicating proposed TETRA use on such channels. Therefore, immediate and formal clarification is required to determine if such applications are compliant with the Commission’s rules."
LightSquared further urged the FCC to establish a rulemaking proceeding from its petition to develop new technical operating parameters for terrestrial use of the 1526-1536 MHz portion of the L band. Broad recognition exists “that the proposed rulemaking would allow LightSquared to use the lower 10 MHz in its 4G wireless network,” LightSquared said in reply comments in docket RM-11683 (http://xrl.us/bn83gm). Several commenters noted that the proposed approach “would seek to develop parameters for eventual terrestrial use of the lower 10 MHz while respecting the interests of spectrum users in adjacent bands,” including the GPS and aeronautical mobile telemetry bands, it said. FCC action in other proceedings “underscores the pressing need to free additional spectrum for mobile broadband applications,” LightSquared said. The AWS-4 order adopted last month, allowing Dish Network to build a terrestrial network with wireless spectrum, “recognizes that the short-term prospects for freeing additional spectrum for mobile broadband are quite limited,” it said.
The Wi-Fi Alliance and Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance plan to merge, the groups said Thursday. WiGig said it plans to complete the transition of its technology development activity and assets to Wi-Fi Alliance by the middle of the year. The merger of the two groups will mean more efficiency, leverage WiGig technology across all Wi-Fi technologies and ensure harmonization of connectivity and application-layer solutions using the technology, Wi-Fi Alliance said. The two had already collaborated for more than two years -- WiGig Alliance developed WiGig technology specifications, including MAC-PHY and Protocol Adaptation Layers, while Wi-Fi Alliance began to develop interoperability certification for 60 GHz products. The combined group plans to start an interoperability certification program for WiGig products late this year. “It’s clear that 60 GHz technology is an important part of the future of wireless connectivity, and a significant complement to traditional Wi-Fi networking,” said Peter Cooney, practice director-semiconductors at ABI Research, in a news release. “With so many devices expected to incorporate both traditional Wi-Fi and WiGig, it just makes sense for activities to consolidate” the two groups (http://xrl.us/bn83bt).
Mobile broadband will be the best opportunity for operator revenue growth until 2016, research firm Ovum said Thursday in a report. Mobile broadband sales will grow 19.2 percent annually through 2016, generating $122 billion in incremental revenue over that period, Ovum predicted. Other telecom segments are also set for double-digit growth, including public cloud, enterprise Ethernet, IPTV and IP voice. As the telecom industry continues to face risk from the ongoing global financial crisis, “both fixed and mobile operators will face the same fundamental challenge: to increase new sources of revenue fast enough to offset the decline in mature services,” said John Lively, Ovum’s chief forecaster, in a news release. Vendors can grow revenue faster than the industry average in the coming years by positioning themselves in high-potential product segments -- converged packet optical, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers, 40G/100G networking gear, carrier Wi-Fi and network-related services, Ovum said. Component makers will face far more volatility, but can mitigate this by partnering with infrastructure vendors and winning a share of 40G and 100G business, Lively said (http://xrl.us/bn828m).