Wireless net neutrality rules could hamper the ability of small carriers to compete, said Cellcom CEO Patrick Riordan and Bluegrass Cellular CEO Ron Smith in a series of meetings at the FCC. The two carried the message for CTIA in meetings with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mignon Clyburn, Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and others at the agency, said filings in docket 10-127. “They both explained that adopting onerous open Internet rules could make it more difficult to raise capital and invest in their communities, at the detriment of service to rural America, areas where cable and telecommunications broadband companies often do not reach,” said the filing made by CTIA on the Pai meeting. It said the CEOs “also explained that adoption of expansive open Internet rules for mobile broadband would hinder their ability to offer the alternative business models at the heart of competitive differentiation and engage in practices designed to improve network performance.”

The FCC should stay the course and allow robust unlicensed use of the TV band, Google and Microsoft said in an FCC filing. Unlicensed should be allowed to use a channel in the duplex gap, guard bands separating LTE from incumbent licensed services, and Channel 37, they said. The firms opposed petitions by GE Healthcare, Qualcomm and others for reconsideration of the incentive auction order. “Several of these parties base their petitions on the claim that unlicensed services cannot coexist alongside licensed services under any set of technical rules,” said a filing in docket 12-268. “This is plainly incorrect. It is always possible to avoid harmful interference by adjusting operating parameters such as transmit power, signal timing, spectral separation, and physical separation, and unlicensed devices in the 600 MHz band are no exception.” Also posted in the same docket Friday, Mobile Future opposed various recon petitions seeking changes to the rules. “The Commission should reject requests to reimburse Low Power television stations or wireless microphone users for the costs associated with relocation following the Incentive Auction, because those entities are not eligible for reimbursement of relocation expenses under the Spectrum Act,” Mobile Future said. “The Commission similarly should reject requests to protect LPTV and TV Translator stations in the repacking process as inconsistent with the Spectrum Act.”

Wearable electronics are poised to become a $25.2 billion global market, with a volume of 142.6 million units, by 2020, based on a 26 percent compound annual growth rate through the end of the decade, said Allied Market Research in a report. North America currently has the largest share of the global wearables market, but Europe will grow the fastest to become the largest market by 2020, it said. It estimated that wearables were a $4 billion market globally last year. The market is dominated by large players such as Adidas, Google and Nike, but companies like Fitbit and Jawbone "have raised a lot of capital through funding based on their business ideas and are now competing with large players in the wearable electronics space," it said.

T-Mobile is picking up a large number of “high quality” subscribers, but most are coming from AT&T or Verizon, rather than from Sprint, T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter said Thursday at the Walls Fargo financial conference. Carter’s boss, CEO John Legere, has repeatedly said T-Mobile will soon pass Sprint in total subscribers (see 1410280049). Carter said T-Mobile welcomes a more competitive Sprint. “I think that’s a common myth in the wireless industry that Sprint has to fail in order for T-Mobile to be successful,” he said. T-Mobile is getting “the vast majority” of subscribers leaving AT&T and Verizon, Carter said. The company picks up subscribers at twice the rate it losses them through porting, he said. T-Mobile is watching Sprint closely and it’s “refreshing” to see the company emerge “rejuvenated,” he said. He added that like T-Mobile, the subscribers Sprint picks up will come mostly from “the duopoly.” Carter said T-Mobile is already offering 700 MHz handsets and is aggressively building out the 700 MHz spectrum it bought from Verizon. “It’s a game changer for us,” he said. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, who spoke to the conference Wednesday, said he has made a lot of progress since taking over three months ago. “Sprint is a great company,” he said. “It has an incredible set of employees who are eager to win, who are eager to get back on the winning track.” Claure said that when he started, Sprint was getting only 10 percent of gross customer adds industrywide. “When you’re 10 percent, that means you are not even part of the conversation, you’re irrelevant,” he said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau extended the comment deadline on Recco's waiver request to permit equipment authorization and licensing of Recco’s avalanche rescue system. Initial comments were due Thursday (see 1410140175). The new deadline is Dec. 5 for initial comments, Dec. 22 for replies, the bureau said Wednesday. “The posting of the underlying requests to the Commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System was delayed, which has impeded prospective commenters’ review of the requests,” the bureau said.

The FCC’s long-awaited AWS-3 auction gets underway Thursday with 70 bidders qualifying to take part, including AT&T, Dish Network, T-Mobile and Verizon. “Americans’ demand for mobile Internet access anytime, anywhere will only continue to grow,” wrote Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, in a blog post Wednesday aimed at consumers. “When you add the Internet of Things which is expected to fuel everything from transportation to utilities and health care, the demand will only continue to grow. This spectrum will help to meet this demand.”

U.S. shoppers who own a Samsung Galaxy S or Galaxy Note device can add "Card Linked Offers" via the Samsung Wallet app for automatic coupon redemption at checkout as a result of a new partnership between Samsung and Coupons.com. The partnership will mean mobile savings for more than 20 million Samsung flagship devices in the U.S., the companies said Monday. With a single tap, shoppers can add coupons from top national retailers and restaurants directly to their Visa, American Express and MasterCard accounts, they said. "We are striving to enhance Samsung Wallet through strategic partnerships and to connect users to more useful content," Samsung said. "As coupon redemption continues to play a more and more prominent role in the mobile shopping experience, our service will allow consumers to save money more conveniently when shopping," online or offline, it said.

The FirstNet Finance Committee plans a special meeting Nov. 17 via teleconference, FirstNet said Monday in the Federal Register. The board will post an agenda online before the meeting. The teleconference is to begin at 9:30 a.m.

Gogo continued to urge the FCC to take action on the air-to-ground mobile broadband service proposed by Qualcomm. Gogo repeated its preference for dividing the proposed 500 MHz band into four nationwide 125 MHz licenses, it said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-114. With a 125 MHz license, each ground station could support forward link capacity of about 400 Mbps, Gogo said. The number of ground stations in a network can be increased “through cell splitting without additional interference to satellites operating in the band,” it said. Auctioning four nationwide licenses wouldn’t increase the potential for harmful interference to primary services in the band, it said. Licensees wouldn’t be operating co-frequency with one another “and aggregate interference would be limited on a per-Hertz basis,” it said. The filing pertained to a meeting with the Wireless Bureau.

AT&T’s buy of Iusacell for $2.5 billion (see 1411070053) gives AT&T less than 10 percent of the wireless market in Mexico, “but could set the stage to later on add regional assets in Mexico that America Movil is attempting to sell or even assets from the bankrupt Nextel International,” BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said Monday in a research report. “The bigger question that will likely emerge is what AT&T plans are for Brazil, which is on the cusp of wireless market consolidation.” Analysts also commented on AT&T’s announcement that it will spend less on capital expenditures in 2015 than in 2014, a 14 percent cut from $21 billion to $18 billion. The announcement seems like a negative for tower, fiber and other infrastructure companies but “the headline may appear worse than the reality” since AT&T “will continue to spend on some important initiatives such as wireless capacity and GigaPower,” wrote Wells Fargo's Jennifer Fritzsche.