Android Open Source Project (AOSP) smartphone shipments grew 20 percent sequentially in Q2 compared with 3 percent total market growth worldwide for the period, said ABI Research in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1ocnDCN). AOSP phones were 20 percent of the smartphone market during the quarter, it said. OHA (Open Handset Alliance) Android smartphones continue to lead the market with 65 percent market share, but growth slowed to 13 percent in Q2, ABI said. The Android platform, combining AOSP and OHA, shipped 278 million smartphones in Q2, for an 85 percent market share, driven primarily by Chinese and Indian vendors, which had 51 percent share. “While many of these manufacturers are low cost, some are making inroads in the mid-tier, including Xiaomi and Gionee,” and that’s a “growing challenge to Samsung in particular,” said Nick Spencer, senior practice director, ABI Research. Third-place Microsoft had a “near-flat” quarter, with shipments slipping 1 percent for the period to 2 percent market share, Spencer said.

Global Eagle Entertainment is providing its wireless in-flight entertainment product on Philippine Airlines. The software platform for wireless in-flight services and entertainment (WISE) has been deployed through a technological partnership with OnAir’s new wireless solution, and on Philippine Airlines’ in air wireless entertainment technology, Global Eagle said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1qVq3bW). WISE, designed as hardware-agnostic, is a flexible content driven in-flight entertainment platform that supports most popular mobile devices, laptops and tablets, it said.

Andrew Bachman will surrender more than $1.2 million in assets to settle an FTC complaint alleging he was operating a “massive mobile cramming scheme,” said a Tuesday FTC news release (http://1.usa.gov/1tSudS2). The total monetary judgment in the ruling (http://1.usa.gov/1s8q8bK) is upward of $97 million, but was partially suspended due to inability to pay after Bachman forfeits a number of items: a Ferrari and a Mercedes; eight watches, including four Rolexes and three Audemars; and the contents of four bank accounts and shares in several startup companies, said the FTC, which has been ramping up its mobile cramming actions in recent months. It filed a complaint against Bachman in December (CD Dec 17 p12) and more recently sued T-Mobile for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, alleging the carrier has profited for years off of mobile cramming schemes (CD July 2 p5).

French carrier Iliad’s bid for a majority stake in T-Mobile US (CD Aug 1 p1) could make a Sprint/T-Mobile deal an even tougher sell for regulators, said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant in a Monday research note. Iliad’s bid is “likely to reinforce regulators’ instinct” that the U.S. market can still support four national carriers, Gallant wrote. “It’s one thing for regulators to base a challenge to Sprint/T-Mobile on projections that four players are viable. It’s another for regulators to know that an existing telecom operator is willing to bet its own money on that same belief.” Gallant also said language in an FCC rulemaking notice weighing in against joint bidding arrangements by the national carriers (CD Aug 4 p1) could be another sign of FCC resistance to a Sprint/T-Mobile deal.

The FCC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration plan a workshop Oct. 14 on ways to cut the number of injuries and fatalities of workers who have to climb communications towers, said a public notice released Monday (http://bit.ly/1v38Z5m). The agencies said there already have been nine tower deaths in 2014. The workshop is to examine “factors contributing to the high rate of tower climber injuries and fatalities” and “best practices” for tower safety, the agencies said. Among the speakers will be FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The workshop is to start at 9 a.m. at FCC headquarters.

Outdoor facilities deployed by critical infrastructure companies should be given protected status in proposed rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band, said engineering firm Lockard & White in a filing at the FCC. The firm does work on behalf of electric utilities building smart grids, the filing said. The reliability and resilience of utility networks need to be “exceptionally high, so that communications are maintained, especially during emergencies such as power outages,” the firm said in a filing posted Friday in docket 12-354 (http://bit.ly/1rSVKyJ).

The Canadian Radio-TV and Telecommunications Commission said small carriers there face discrimination from their larger peers in wholesale roaming rates, said the U.S-based Rural Wireless Association Friday (http://bit.ly/1rT0wMF). RWA said U.S. regulators should follow Canada’s lead. “Canada now expressly prohibits discrimination among and between all roaming agreements,” RWA said. “Canada also enacted new legislation that sets all roaming rates (Data, Voice and Texting) at the prevailing retail rate of the carrier that is providing the roaming service.” The FCC’s three-year-old data roaming rule “other than requiring dialog between parties ... has yet to change the actual behavior of the country’s largest wireless carriers,” the group said.

The FCC needs to move forward as quickly as possible to approve rules mandating improved location accuracy for calls to 911, representatives of technology vendor TruePosition said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson. The company was represented in part by Jamie Barnett, former chief of the bureau, now at Venable. “The men and women of the public safety and 911 communities strongly support the FCC’s adoption of its proposed rules to improve the E911 system now,” said an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 07-114 (http://bit.ly/1n6QrHA).

The CTIA Spectrum Clearinghouse assisted in the relocation of 17 links in the AWS-1 band in the first half of 2014, said a report the group filed at the FCC. Throughout its lifetime, the clearinghouse has relocated 1,713 links, the report said (http://bit.ly/1rLRGQA). The average cost for those moved this year was $191,708. The report was posted Thursday in docket 00-258.

As of March 31, Sprint estimates its costs directly associated with completing the reconfiguration of all 800 MHz licensees will be $331.3 million or less, said the carrier in filing Wednesday in FCC docket 02-55 (http://bit.ly/1qszEC3). The number is based on forecasts submitted to the 800 MHz Transition Administrator and reflects “the amounts remaining unpaid under executed contracts as well as an estimate based on the TA metrics for the small number of licensees in the U.S.-Mexican border not yet under contract,” Sprint said. The FCC approved an order in 2004 that launched the rebanding with a goal of eliminating interference to public safety systems in the 800 MHz band.