Sony’s mobile communications businesses are among the “areas of volatility management,” not “growth drivers” or “stable profit generators,” under the company’s three-year “corporate strategy” plan disclosed Wednesday. Sony sees its semiconductor, games, Sony Pictures and Sony Music businesses as growth drivers, and imaging products and video and sound as stable profit generators. But TVs, smartphones and tablets “operate in markets characterized by high volatility and challenging competitive landscapes,” Sony said. “Sony will place the highest priority on curtailing risk and securing profits in its operation of these businesses. Since both markets are experiencing intense cost competition and commoditization, Sony will strive to further increase the added value of its products by leveraging its in-house technologies and component devices.” Sony won’t chase market share or volume sales in TVs or mobile communications, but will rely on niche sales of products that don’t require high scale, CEO Kazuo Hirai said Wednesday on a conference call for overseas investors. “These two businesses are areas where we really need to focus on the volatility management,” Hirai said in answer to a question of whether Sony’s “Plan B” might include exiting the TV or mobile communications businesses. “The market is very quickly changing, and we obviously need to stay competitive with our products,” Hirai said. “With these two businesses, we need to especially keep an eye on the competitive environment, how profitable these businesses are for us, and what the future prospects of these businesses look like.” Sony plans to review those metrics “very often” to be sure “we feel comfortable with where we are in these businesses,” Hirai said. “And if in fact we make the determination that we aren’t comfortable being in these businesses, given some of the factors I talked about, we need to take a look at a variety of different options for Plan B.” Hirai said he hopes that Plan B won’t amount to “a complete exit” from the mobile communications business, “because we learned when we exited the PC business that the cost impact was tremendous.” The “better alternative,” he said, should Sony need to “go down that path,” would be to “partner up with other companies, third-party companies, that are willing to get into this space or expand their reach or are interested in some of the potential of brand collaborations that we can bring to bear.” Those possibilities strike Hirai as “more palatable as a Plan B option as opposed to getting out of these businesses outright.” Hirai acknowledges that “it’s very apparent to us” that smartphones are still “a very aggressively growing business,” he told another questioner who asked why Sony was unable to group mobile communications with other Sony growth drivers. “But the volatility involved in the business also makes it a very challenging one, where we need to, instead of go for scale, really make sure we’re driving the business in a very safe way,” he said. “One of the things we see when we look back with 20/20 hindsight is the fact that we tried to ride the growth in the smartphone business too aggressively.” Sony incurred huge cost impairments, and Hirai said that’s “obviously something that we don’t want to go through once again.”

The AWS-3 auction may have been “a success” for the U.S. Treasury, but “it was a disaster for American wireless consumers,” T-Mobile President John Legere wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “AT&T and Verizon showed that they can, and will, dig into their deep pockets to corner the market on available spectrum at nearly any cost. To add insult to injury, the FCC’s rules actually allowed companies that don’t provide wireless service at all to buy up huge amounts of spectrum and sit on it for ten years! The results are not good for consumers.” Three companies spent “an insane” $42 billion, buying “a ridiculous 94 percent of the spectrum sold at this auction,” he wrote. Rules for the next auction “should be focused on fostering competition in the US wireless industry and doing what’s right for the American consumer,” said Legere. The agency had no immediate response.

Texas Instruments announced availability of two Wi-Fi modules in its SimpleLink family, the company’s low-power platform for the Internet of Things. The CC3100 gives developers the flexibility to program apps using any microcontroller, TI said, while the CC3200 integrates a programmable ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller, allowing customers to run their own code on-chip. By using the modules, developers can benefit from lower development costs, reduced time to market, and simplified procurement and certification, the company said.

The FCC dismissed the American Hotel & Lodging Association's, Marriott International's and Ryman Hospitality Properties’ petition for declaratory ruling on Wi-Fi containment capabilities, in an order in RM-11737 on Feb. 13. The hotel associations withdrew a request for declaratory ruling Jan. 30. In 2013, Marriott prevented guests at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville from bypassing the hotel’s Wi-Fi to use their own Wi-Fi hot spots, the Enforcement Bureau said in an Oct. 3, 2014, order. Marriott signed a consent decree to settle the $600,000 fine after the commission completed an investigation of the Wi-Fi jamming in 2013. The FCC issued two enforcement advisories, one Dec. 8, another Jan. 27, calling Wi-Fi jamming “a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal Wi-Fi hotspots on the commercial establishment’s premises.” Wi-Fi blocking violates Section 333 of the Communications Act, the FCC said. The commission shouldn't dismiss the petition or close the proceeding, Public Knowledge said in an opposition filed Friday. It suggested dismissing the petition with prejudice, because Marriott filed a request for declaratory ruling but didn't file a motion requesting that the commission dismiss the pleading. In Marriott's opinion, Section 333 doesn't apply to unlicensed devices operating under Part 15 and it has the right to use jamming technology for cybersecurity reasons, Public Knowledge said.

The near field communications technology (NFC) built into more than 500 million mobile phones can be tapped by retailers to boost the in-store shopping experience, the NFC Forum said last week, citing research from Strategy Analytics. According to the study, which included survey results from 1,000 end users, NFC technology was “overwhelmingly” preferred over competing communications technologies, including Bluetooth beacons and QR codes. Among the ways NFC suggested that retailers can implement NFC technology in stores are: for deals, Wi-Fi and rewards accounts; multimedia content and real-time store inventory; information about related products; NFC-enabled on-phone shopping carts; product information; and cartridge/toner refill and one-touch reorder capability.

Itron petitioned the FCC Wireless Bureau to reconsider its denial of the company’s requests for waivers from Sections 22.355, 22.515, and 22.531 of FCC rules -- co-channel protection requirements and effective radiated power (ERP) rules for its operations on the 931 MHz band. Waivers of the co-channel protection requirements are necessary for Itron to “engage in half-duplex transmissions to facilitate transmissions both to and from Itron’s meter module end points,” the company said Thursday in docket 13-195. The ERP waiver is necessary to permit Itron to operate fixed and mobile stations with an ERP of less than 2 watts to be subject to a frequency tolerance of 5 ppm rather than 1.5 ppm, the company said. The waivers would allow Itron to support automatic meter reading and advanced metering infrastructure systems that are “key components of modern smart grid infrastructure,” the company said. The Wireless Bureau denied Itron’s waiver request Jan. 13 because it said Itron hadn’t adequately explained how its proposed operations would protect co-channel site-based incumbents and co-channel geographic area licensees. Itron clarified in the petition how its proposed operations would protect incumbents and co-channel geographic area licensees.

Free Wi-Fi access will be provided to all guests staying at Hyatt-branded hotels and resorts worldwide as of Saturday, a Hyatt news release said. Guests will be able to obtain Wi-Fi for free on an unlimited number of mobile devices or laptops in guest rooms and social spaces at Hyatt hotels, it said. The sign-on process to access free Wi-Fi will vary by property. “It didn’t feel natural to put barriers around something travelers view as an essential part of their hotel stay,” said Vice President-Brands Kristine Rose. “Staying connected through technology is a critical part of productivity and keeping in touch with loved ones, especially while away traveling." Platinum and Diamond Hyatt Gold Passport members will be able to upgrade to premium Wi-Fi service for free whenever the upgrade is available. Guests not enrolled in loyalty programs can buy premium service, said the hotel chain. Marriott International was fined $600,000 by the FCC in October after that hotel chain was found to be blocking personal Wi-Fi networks at its Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville (see 1410060066). The hotel chain announced in January it would no longer block guests from using their personal Wi-Fi devices at any of its hotels (see 1501150064) in order to “protect personal data,” said Marriott International’s Global Chief Information Officer Bruce Hoffmeister.

The FCC authorized AT&T’s maximum bit rate program, the carrier said in a comment filed Friday that hasn’t yet appeared in docket 14-28. The Enforcement Bureau is considering whether to issue a notice of apparent liability against AT&T alleging that the company's public disclosure of its maximum bit rate program failed to satisfy the FCC's transparency rule and proposing statutory forfeitures, AT&T said in a motion to dismiss filed Jan. 5. The FCC endorsed managed bit rate programs in staff reports on AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile, AT&T said. The company disclosed its network management program and informed customers that it may “slow speeds once an unlimited plan customer has used a set amount of data” through bill statements, emails, text messages and its website since 2011, it said. T-Mobile recently agreed to offer more accurate information to customers checking their mobile broadband speeds after reaching their monthly data caps (see 1411240062).

Nvidia’s automotive platforms for the connected car “remain on a sharp upward trajectory, registering better than 80 percent growth” over last year, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said Wednesday on an earnings call. “More than 7.5 million cars with our technology are now on the road, up from 4.7 million a year ago.” At CES, the company bowed Nvidia Drive, “a computing platform for next-generation advanced driver assistant systems and digital cockpits,” Kress said. Nvidia Drive “is basically a mobile super chip, a mobile super computer, with a ton of software on top,” CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in Q&A. The platform enables “a very advanced digital cockpit,” Huang said. “You know that we're incredibly good at computer graphics, and the things that we can do in the car with more and more displays showing up in the car is pretty wonderful.”

Alternative early upgrade and no-contract wireless plans are disrupting the market’s traditional purchase model for handsets, said Parks Associates research released Thursday. A quarter of T-Mobile subscribers prefer the traditional two-year wireless contract model with a subsidized handset, while a third prefer to pay full price upfront and 31 percent would rather pay in monthly installments, Parks said. T-Mobile and AT&T “have tapped into the consumer desire for the latest and greatest smartphone with their early-upgrade programs,” said Harry Wang, Parks director-health and mobile product research. Some 14 percent of smartphone owners plan to upgrade to their next device more quickly than they did for their current device, with a quarter of them citing special operator incentives as the reason. “These alternative plans are one stone for two birds -- they help operators acquire new subscribers and retain loyal, high-value customers,” Wang said. The challenge for operators is to persuade smartphone users to upgrade early and buy more-profitable data plans while minimizing voluntary customer churn, he said.