There are “some limitations” to the FCC’s agreement with major U.S. wireless carriers to let customers switch networks on their mobile devices, Sherwin Siy, Public Knowledge vice president-legal affairs, said in a news release Wednesday. Those carriers kept a commitment to adopt policies within a year allowing customers to switch networks while keeping their existing devices, two FCC officials said in a Wednesday blog post (see 1502110050 and 1502120028). Consumers are still barred from unlocking their mobile phones, which was the “original source of concern,” Siy said. The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, which allows such unlocking, is “only effective for a short period of time,” he said. Siy noted PK’s recent comments to the Copyright Office seeking to allow unlocking exemptions under Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 (see 1502110062). PK hopes Congress will “ensure that such a change can be made permanently, and settle the matter once and for all," Siy said.

CTIA urged the FCC to ensure a new open Internet framework won’t hinder differentiated offerings and choices that mobile consumers currently have. The market currently relies on Communications Act Title I classification, and Title II with forbearance isn’t an appropriate framework for mobile wireless broadband, the association said in an ex parte notice filed Wednesday in docket 10-127. The commission can ensure stability and investment in the mobile broadband market with Section 706, it said. Section 332 keeps the commission from treating mobile broadband services as common carriers, it said. The filing included a white paper describing the importance of competition in an open Internet and the consumer benefits of a competitive mobile wireless industry.

The FCC Wireless Bureau designated the American Society for Health Care Engineering of the American Hospital Association (ASHE/AHA) to be frequency coordinator for Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) operations in the 2360-2390 MHz band. Use of the MBAN will let doctors wirelessly monitor and log data from patients with chronic diseases. The only other applicant was the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, the bureau said Wednesday in its order. While both groups are qualified, the bureau cited ASHE/AHA’s experience as the coordinator for the wireless medical telemetry service, where it maintains and operates a database that includes registration data for more than 9,000 WMTS systems located in more than 3,400 hospitals. “Health care facilities will be better served by having a single point of contact for WMTS and MBAN coordination, given the similar purposes of the two services,” the bureau said. It also cited the hospital association’s “institutional knowledge of the health care industry in general, and its familiarity with the medical telemetry user community in particular.” The bureau noted that the group will work with Comsearch as a consultant. The MBAN order was years in the making and was approved in May 2012 (see 1205250045).

Wilson Electronics, which manufactures cell signal boosters, released the newly redesigned Pro Signal Meter for the custom installer market, the company said Wednesday. The “professional grade” tool detects available cellular signals at a given location, identifies frequencies, measures signal strength and bandwidth, and displays the information on an integrated LED screen, Wilson said in a news release. “The Pro Signal Meter can be used indoors or out, and detects 2G, 3G and 4G frequency bands used by all North American cellular service providers.” The company also calls itself weBoost.

Even when an individual isn't using an app on a smartphone, many apps still know the user's location, said an FTC blog post by Amanda Koulousias, an attorney in the Privacy and Identity Protection Division. Map apps that can give a consumer directions quickly, or a shopping app that notifies consumers about a sale nearby, may be considered helpful, Koulousias said. “But this kind of tracking also increases the amount of information apps collect -- and potentially share -- about you.” Consumers can often disable an app’s ability to track their location by changing the app’s settings, she said. “Depending on your device’s operating system, there might be system settings that can help, too.”

Gogo urged the FCC to allow for at least three licensees in the proposed air-ground mobile broadband service (AGMBS) band, said an ex parte filing on various meetings at the agency in docket 13-114. Dividing the 500 MHz band three or more ways would still give each licensee sufficient capacity to offer “robust service,” Gogo said. It urged the agency to adopt a five-year substantial service requirement “or, in the alternative, a seven-year requirement with an interim construction benchmark” as part of the rules. Gogo said it would comply with all applicable rules and directives from law enforcement on air safety. “Technical complexity, physical constraints and cost” mean most aircraft would be able to offer service from only one provider, Gogo conceded. “Nonetheless, AGMBS providers likely would compete on a periodic basis for contracts to provide service to those aircraft, and offering at least three 14 GHz licenses for auction -- with an aggregation limit of 250 MHz -- would help ensure a competitive inflight communications market.”

Various industry groups and Globalstar met with FCC officials to discuss Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) and its potential effect on adjacent unlicensed operations in the 2.4 GHz band, a filing in docket 13-213 said. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group, NCTA, Wi-Fi Alliance and Wireless Internet Service Providers Association attended the meeting. Some expressed concerns about potential interference to unlicensed operations, the filing said. “Globalstar’s representatives stated their view that TLPS will have little to no impact on these unlicensed operations, and noted that Globalstar is currently deploying TLPS on an experimental basis.”

The major U.S. wireless carriers have kept a commitment to adopt policies within a year allowing customers to switch networks while keeping their existing devices, two FCC officials said in a Wednesday blog post. “We congratulate CTIA and the participating wireless providers for reaching this important milestone,” wrote Roger Sherman, chief of the Wireless Bureau, and Kris Monteith, acting chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The rules require carriers to unlock devices “no later than one year after initial activation, consistent with reasonable time and usage requirements,” they said. Participating carriers also have agreed to notify subscribers when their devices are eligible for unlocking, if they're not automatically unlocked, and to post unlocking information on their websites, they said. “Full implementation of the unlocking principles is a positive development for both consumers and wireless providers, as it increases competition to innovate,” the FCC officials said. CTIA is pleased the FCC recognized that carriers met the deadline, Scott Bergmann, vice president-regulatory affairs, said. “We also remind consumers that an unlocked device does not necessarily mean an interoperable one since different carriers use different technologies and spectrum bands.”

The U.S. mobile handset recycle rate fell 15 percent last year, or by 25 million phones, said a report by Recon Analytics that predicted a downward trend for smartphone sales with far-reaching effects just as more spectrum is opening for new services. Of the 143 million mobile phones sold in the U.S. in 2014, nine in 10 were smartphones, said Recon analyst Roger Entner, which compares with smartphone sales of roughly 50 percent the prior year. With device sales and new subscriber additions declining, the handset replacement rate has “abruptly slowed to the lowest rate since we began calculating the metric,” said Entner. He forecasts device sales will decline 5 percent to 136 million in 2015 and slip again in 2016 to 131 million. Consumers’ phone purchase patterns have changed, said Entner, with a growing number delaying upgrades to fulfill two-year contract obligations for lower monthly service plans. Consumers replacing their phones focused on newer, higher-priced devices, which resulted in device revenue slipping only 5 percent in 2014 despite the 15 percent drop in unit sales, said Entner. Short term, the movement to higher-priced devices bumps up revenue and profitability for mobile carriers, he said. The long-term trend is negative, because it takes longer for new devices to reach the network, exacerbated by the introduction of equipment installment plans (EIP) that have extended the handset replacement cycle by 4.1 months to 26.5 months in 2014, Entner said. The percentage of devices being replaced every year grew from 45 percent in 2013 to 49 percent last year, compared with the percentage of devices that replaced obsolete devices, which jumped from 15 percent in 2013 to 35 percent a year later, said Entner. Devices replaced on the traditional two-year schedule fell from 40 percent in 2013 to 16 percent last year, he said. A wedge, Entner said, is forming in Americans’ purchasing behavior between those who upgrade phones every year and those who upgrade when the phone breaks or becomes obsolete. App capabilities may be “artificially restrained” as developers cater to a consumer less prone to take advantage of new technologies to improve the utility of the device and service, he said. Software developers will have to consider that a large percentage of smartphones in use won’t be able to run cutting-edge apps, said Entner. Some developers won’t build the latest features into their apps, slowing the pace of innovation, he said. Older devices in the market that don’t have the latest electronics won’t be able to access new spectrum bands as they come online, said Entner. A six-year-old iPhone 3GS will achieve download speeds of 2 Mbps with its first-generation WCDMA chipsets, compared with an iPhone 6 that can download the content 25 times faster and access newly licensed spectrum, said Entner. “As fewer people upgrade their devices, the pace with which consumers can use new unused parts of the networks on new spectrum slows down and consumers are stuck on congested legacy spectrum,” Entner said, underscoring that mobile operators spent more than $45 billion on new spectrum in the recent AWS-3 auction. The transition to Voice over LTE (VoLTE) could be slowed by an “embedded base of older devices,” said Entner, and consumers' experience with speed and graphics could suffer, leading to buffering or long waits as content loads. “Longer-term developments could be largely offset in the short term by the slowed innovation and cramped spectrum caused by delayed handset replacement,” the researcher said. While following T-Mobile into the EIP space, AT&T has been able to defend its base against T-Mobile and other operators that offer EIP financial benefits as “device subsidy expenditures have declined significantly,” said Entner. He envisions AT&T encountering the same problems as T-Mobile as “the device universe" of its customers ages. Verizon is holding on to the status quo while offering consumers the option to do EIP, said Entner. Verizon benefits less from the short-term gains of EIP but “will also not suffer as much from a lengthened handset replacement cycle,” Entner said. He called Sprint, which “dabbles” in EIP offers, a “long-term winner.” The carrier's 24-month handset leasing program is a “viable plan” to both retain the device upgrade cycle and “reap the benefits from a customer base with newer devices,” Entner said.

Mothers’ ownership of smartphones in the U.S. passed that of laptop and desktop computers for the first time, said a fall study on the “lives of moms" by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. IAB's report, released Tuesday, compares technology habits and media behaviors of online moms aged 18-32 in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, China and the U.K. U.S. moms also are spending 35 percent more time online via their smartphones than via computers, it said. Elsewhere, 76 percent of millennial moms in Brazil own smartphones, up from 25 percent in 2012, and 93 percent of U.K. moms own smartphones, up from 73 percent two years ago. China leads the five countries in smartphone penetration among moms at 95 percent (up from 62 percent in 2012), followed closely by Canada at 94 percent, up from 59 percent two years ago, IAB said. Tablet ownership is on the rise, too, with China making the biggest gains, from 15 percent penetration in 2012 to 50 percent, while the U.K. penetration jumped from 18 percent to 66 percent. U.S. millennial moms spend more time with media overall at 8.9 hours daily, up from 8.3 hours in 2012, far more than the 2.8 hours they spend watching TV, IAB said, and more than the 1.7 hours spent on PCs. “With millennials making up the majority of new moms, brands and agencies need to think of this valuable demographic as tech-savvy and mobile-first, if they want to earn their interest and loyalty,” said Anna Bager, IAB senior vice president-mobile and video. The report is based on multiple sources, including an in-depth survey conducted by BabyCenter with 10,533 moms Nov. 3-Dec. 21, with U.S. qualitative research gathered via in-person friendship groups, and a longitudinal six-month online discussion group, IAB said. The U.S. portion of the survey included 2,742 participants, of whom 1,672 were millennial moms.