The FCC International Bureau dismissed as moot a Dec. 17, 2004, petition by Wilkinson Barker seeking review of Foreign Ownership Guidelines issued the previous month. The law firm sought reconsideration of the rules as applied to common carrier and aeronautical radio station applicants, licensees and spectrum lessees, the bureau said Monday. Wilkinson Barker asked the agency to revise the guidelines to say the stricter review requirements in Communications Act Section 310(b)(3) apply only to direct foreign ownership of licensees and that Section 310(b)(4) applies to all indirect foreign ownership. “Since the filing of the Petition, the Commission has adopted a forbearance approach to section 310(b)(3),” the bureau explained.

AT&T’s decision to drop its plans for an in-flight connectivity service confirms that there are high barriers to entry in the in-flight connectivity business, said Evercore ISI analysts. AT&T announced the change of plans in a Reuters report. At the time that AT&T announced its plans to develop the service, Evercore analysts cited FCC approval of spectrum use for air-to-ground service and high equipment switching costs as barriers to entry, analysts said in a research note. Gogo is the only company to combine telecom service provider DNA with aeronautical DNA, and “both are necessary to be successful longer-term,” they said. No current competitors are telecom service providers, “and speculated competitors have no background in the aeronautical space,” they said. Last week, AT&T announced its intent to acquire Iusacell (see 1411100034), a wireless company in Mexico, an AT&T spokesman said. "At the same time, and after a thorough review of our investment portfolio, the company decided to no longer pursue entry into the Inflight Connectivity industry." AT&T will focus its capital on transformative investments, such as international and video, he said.

Wireless carriers will deploy more than 4 million public Wi-Fi hot spots and 20 million home spots in 2015, consultant Mobile Experts said in a report. "Even if we exclude homespot deployments, the number of Wi-Fi access points will reach the level of millions for cable operators and public venues during 2015, outstripping the capacity of new LTE base stations,” said Joe Madden, principal analyst, in a news release. “Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 -- so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity.”

The FCC is dropping a requirement that applicants for certification of Unlicensed Personal Communications Service devices must be members of UTAM, said a Federal Registernotice Friday. UTAM was established to clear the 1910-1930 MHz band of incumbent microwave licensees and the membership requirement was established to guarantee it had money to do its job, the FCC said. But UTAM has told the FCC it has accomplished this objective and the group is being dissolved, the agency said.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Friday sought comment on a Bijora petition asking for clarification that FCC rules do not prohibit text message advertisements sent with the prior express consent or permission of the recipient. Alternately, the company sought a retroactive waiver for such ads already sent out. Comments are due Nov. 21, replies Nov. 28, the bureau said. In its petition, Bijora describes itself as a “small business owner currently facing a class action lawsuit seeking multi-billions of dollars in damages because it sent text messages to customers who had expressly consented to receive them.” The lawsuit claims the company violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits sending an unsolicited advertisement, Bijora said. The plaintiff “relies on a regulation, Section 64.1200(a)(4)(iv), issued by the Commission in an order implementing amendments to the TCPA,” the company said. “That regulation requires that certain opt-out language appear on faxes, but its scope is unclear.” Bijora asked the FCC to clarify that the prohibition “should be limited to unsolicited faxes and texts, as that reading best accords with the TCPA's language and legislative history.”

Sprint will take an additional charge of about $105 million for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 for severance and “related costs” tied to a workforce reduction plan, said the company in an SEC filing. The carrier said it had already reported a $160 million charge for the quarter because of workforce reduction costs. Analysts said last week that Sprint faces a long period of rebuilding under new CEO Marcelo Claure (see 1411040039).

AT&T agreed to buy Mexican wireless company Iusacell for $2.5 billion, inclusive of debt, AT&T said Friday. The deal gives AT&T all the Mexican carrier’s spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and approximately 8.6 million subscribers, AT&T said. Grupo Salinas, current owner of 50 percent of Iusacell, must first close its announced purchase of the other 50 percent it doesn’t own, AT&T said. “Mexico is still in the early stages of mobile Internet capabilities and adoption, but customer demand for it is growing rapidly,” said AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. “This is an opportunity for us to provide Iusacell the financial resources, scale and expertise to accelerate the roll-out of world-class mobile Internet speeds and quality in Mexico, like we have in the United States.” The company also offers service under the Unefón brand.

Mobile really is different and shouldn't be subject to the same net neutrality rules as fixed networks, said 4G Americas President Chris Pearson in a Friday letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Mobile operators face continuously changing environments in their cell sectors, with constant challenges to maximize the experience for the majority of users in a given sector,” Pearson said. “All the spectrum below 100 GHz does not amount to the capacity of a single Terabit fiber optic cable.” The success of wireless is tied to “effective and dynamic bandwidth management,” Pearson said. “If policymakers want wireless to be a competitor to wireline broadband, they need to allow wireless operators the flexibility required to manage their networks.” The FCC’s proposed rules are much more complex and demanding than the 2010 rules, he said. Carriers could meet the transparency requirements of that order with a single disclosure, he said. The proposed rules would require “tailored disclosures (i) for end-users to make informed choices; (ii) for edge providers (including content and device providers) to develop, market and maintain Internet offerings; and (iii) for the Commission and the public to understand compliance with the no-blocking and no-commercially unreasonable practices rule,” Pearson said. The requirement is “subjective” and would be difficult to implement, he said.

Qualcomm shares closed down 8.6 percent Thursday at $70.58 on the company’s disclosure in its 10-K SEC filing the previous evening that it’s the subject of two new regulatory investigations into its competitive practices. The FTC notified the company Sept. 17 that it has launched a probe into Qualcomm's licensing business, including a possible "breach" of its commitment to license its technology on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, the 10-K said. Then on Oct. 15, the European Commission notified Qualcomm it was investigating the company’s sales and marketing of its baseband chipsets and possible irregularities in its use of rebates and other "financial incentives," the filing said. "We are fully cooperating with these agencies and believe our practices comply with the laws of our countries, but given that these matters are in their early stages, it is difficult to predict what, if anything, will come of them," CEO Steve Mollenkopf said on an earnings call Wednesday. The two new probes are in addition to a year-old investigation by China’s National Development and Reform Commission that Qualcomm may have violated Chinese anti-monopoly laws, the 10-K said. As key mobile technologies are increasingly becoming adopted into new categories, Qualcomm is "well-positioned" to exploit "these evolving opportunities," Mollenkopf said. Citing Gartner estimates that more than 8 billion smartphones will be sold globally through 2018, Qualcomm sees the smartphone as "representing the largest technology platform on which to innovate and drive upgrade opportunities," he said. "We believe the smartphone will be central to the growing number of connected things around us, and our focus is on aligning our resources to continue to capture these opportunities." Qualcomm is "very pleased with our design activity in the premium tier" of smartphone components, including "flagship devices" like the Snapdragon 805, Qualcomm’s first processor to offer "system-level Ultra HD support and 4K video capture and playback," he said.

The FCC denied Indigo Wireless’ challenge to the Enforcement Bureau’s assessment of a $39,000 forfeiture against the carrier for alleged failure to meet hearing-aid compatible handset requirements for 2009. “Upon review of the Application for Review and the entire record, and finding no basis ... to modify the Bureau’s decisions, we conclude that Indigo Wireless has failed to demonstrate that the Bureau erred,” the FCC said in an order released Thursday.