Prepaid competition is heating up between Verizon and T-Mobile. On Thursday, T-Mobile’s Mint Mobile announced AT&T and Verizon customers can switch to the low-cost carrier “and get service for the rest of the family for free.” Switchers buy one line, starting at $15/month, and get up to four additional lines for free for three months. “At Mint, our mission is to right the wrongs of AT&T and Verizon … who have collectively raised prices 11 times in just the last year,” said Aron North, Mint chief marketing officer. Verizon’s Visible made a counteroffer on Friday, saying T-Mobile customers could receive a five-year rate guarantee at $15 per month, per line. “While Mint is promoting this short-term deal that won’t last, we want to give people looking for a better deal ongoing savings, service and value with no hidden fees, period,” said Nancy Clark, president of Verizon Value.

Noting its launch operations are continuing, Dish Wireless asked the FCC to keep confidential information submitted to it as part of the broadband data collection process. In particular, Dish sought confidential treatment for the mobile propagation modeling and mobile link budget information it submitted, and mobile voice and data subscription numbers. Dish “recognizes that the current rules do not allow for confidential treatment of ‘provider-specific mobile deployment data,’” a filing posted Thursday in docket 19-195 said. But “disclosing the entirety of the data that DISH is required to submit in these two proceedings would have the perverse effect of harming a nascent 5G competitor, which would undermine the Commission’s ultimate goal of increasing broadband availability and competition,” Dish said.

Focused on electromagnetic compatibility, the American National Standards Committee C63 urged that the FCC incorporate a new American National Standards Institute standard into its Part 2 and Part 15 rules for test sites for radiated emission testing between 30 MHz and 1 GHz. “After years of site validation (SV) measurement procedures" contained in other standards, ANSC C63 “decided to create a separate standard, specific for SV procedures,” said an undocketed petition posted Thursday at the FCC. ANSC C63 noted it’s the “principal standards organization responsible for developing American National Standards for electromagnetic compatibility measurements and testing procedures.” The FCC and electronics manufacturers who desire to market their products in the U.S. use the standards.

The Wireless Innovation Forum announced the formation of the Highly Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Task Group. The organization will examine how sharing based on the citizens radio service band model can have applications in other bands. Google’s Andrew Clegg will head the project; he also is WInnForum’s chief technology officer. The group is expected to release a report or recommendation by February 2025, a Wednesday news release said. The release mentions the lower 3 GHz band, a top target of carriers for full-power licensed use (see 2405060051). “The purpose of this project is to start with the best practices identified in CBRS spectrum sharing, and then attempt to simplify and optimize these practices for future applications, including the 3.1 GHz band” Clegg said: “Future spectrum sharing will inevitably face a greater number of incumbent systems and a need for more rapid dynamic reconfiguration, and WInnForum is up to the challenge of adapting what we’ve done in CBRS. It’s the best place to start, given the sharing expertise we’ve developed over nearly ten years.” CommScope, Federated Wireless, Nokia, Sony, the Wireless ISP Association “and others to be announced” are backing the project.

The First Responder Network Authority board Wednesday approved launching a 10-year initiative with $2 billion in coverage investments. In June, the board approved $534 million for network enhancements as part of a $684 million budget package for FY 2025 (see 2406240031). “We know that the No. 1 priority for public safety continues to be coverage,” said Jocelyn Moore, chair of the board’s Programs and Future Planning Committee. FirstNet has already invested in in-building coverage, building more deployables, priority access for public safety officials and upgrading its wireless facilities to 5G from 4G, she said. FirstNet is focused on expanding its network in tribal, rural and territorial areas, Moore said. FirstNet is also examining satellite-direct-to-device capabilities for users of the network. The network now has more than 6.1 million connections and “we’re far from done.” A FirstNet team attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and is in Chicago this week for the Democratic National Convention, said Sylvia Moir, Advocacy Committee chair. FirstNet has coordinated with AT&T "to ensure needs are met to support public safety operations,” she said. The investments the authority is making in the network will enable 5G for all public safety users across 50 states and outlying territories, said Brian Crawford, Finance and Investment Committee chair. “Those investments ensure that the network not only maintains parity with other commercial service providers but is also able to fully support a suite of evolving 5G-enabled services,” he said. The meeting was the last for five members, who are at the end of their three-year terms -- Chair Richard Carrizzo, Crawford, Moir, Billy Hewes and Paul Patrick. The board met at the Utah Department of Public Safety in Salt Lake City. Authority Executive Director Joe Wassel said board members were in Utah as school starts and keeping 35,000 students and faculty safe is “a serious business.”

Consumers are waiting longer than ever to trade in their mobile devices -- “an all-time high of 3.7 years,” said Assurant, which tracks consumer trade-ins. Devices are also worth more, $141.02 in Q2, compared with $110.87 a year earlier. Android devices saw a “notable” 37% increase in value, while Apple devices were up 20%, Assurant said. “The number one device turned in from trade-in and upgrade programs, and the only 4G model, was the iPhone 11, accounting for 31% of the top five models,” the Tuesday report said: “For the fifth consecutive quarter, the number one Android device turned in … was the Samsung Galaxy S21.” Apple customers held their devices for an average of 3.8 years, Android 3.5.

A July order by the FCC rejecting a petition for reconsideration by the Competitive Carriers Association of the commission’s 2022 order rules to improve the delivery of outage information to public safety answering points (see 2211170051) is now effective, a Wednesday notice in the Federal Register said. CCA argued that it was unreasonable to require originating service providers (OSPs) to initially notify PSAPs of 911 outages within 30 minutes of discovering an outage, the notice said: The FCC found CCA’s arguments “unpersuasive and concluded that the Commission was reasonable in adding a time limit to the OSP notification rules.” The FCC also rejected CCA’s argument that the commission should create a centralized database “before OSPs would be required to exercise special diligence in maintaining PSAP contact information,” the notice said.

D-Wave Quantum, working with Japan’s NTT Docomo, announced a quantum optimization pilot that spurred “demonstrable mobile network performance improvements.” Using D-Wave’s quantum computing technology, Docomo reduced congestion at base stations by decreasing paging signals during peak calling times by 15%, the companies said. Docomo “plans to deploy the hybrid-quantum solution ... across its Japanese branch offices in the coming months,” a Tuesday news release said: The tech helps the carrier “predict future movement patterns and determine the best combination of base stations to re-establish connections as devices move between tracking areas.”

Viaero Wireless told the FCC on Tuesday that absent further funding from Congress it will suspend a program for removing Huawei gear from its network. Viaero said it installed Huawei radio access network gear at nearly 900 cellsites “over the course of many years.” It must replace “all this RAN equipment, as well as other Huawei gear used for backhaul (microwave) and core switching.” Viaero is “exhausting its own financial resources to fund parts of the project, including payments to third-party vendors, well in advance of receiving reimbursement from the FCC,” a filing in docket 18-89 said. Based on recent assessments of the scope of work ahead and the company’s financial resources, “by the end of 2024, Viaero will be required to suspend work on this project if additional funding from Congress is not provided,” the filing said. Congress is considering, but has not yet approved, legislation providing an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2408090041).

Representatives of EchoStar, Public Knowledge and the Open Technology Institute at New America met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in support of a 60-day mandatory unlocking requirement on handsets. They also urged the FCC to clear use of the lower 12 GHz band for fixed wireless and address a revised spectrum screen, a filing Tuesday in docket 24-186 and other dockets said. “Nothing stands in the Commission’s way to unleashing 500 MHz of spectrum in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band for fixed 5G broadband services,” they said: “The Commission’s current spectrum policies have not imposed or enforced effective limits on spectrum aggregation.” Representatives of the three groups have been making the rounds at the FCC (see 2408090037).