The Department of Transportation is set to publish in the Federal Register Monday a notice seeking public comment on the use of cellphones on commercial flights. “Under the Department’s aviation consumer protection authority, we are seeking comment on whether voice calls on aircraft constitute an unfair practice to consumers ... and/or are inconsistent with adequate air transportation ... and if so whether such calls should be banned or restricted (e.g., not allow voice calls at night time),” says the advanced NPRM (http://1.usa.gov/1l6pxUb). The notice says the FCC has responsibility for parts of the overall issue such as “whether cell phones or other mobile devices used during flight would interfere with cellular networks on the ground.” But it said DOT has broader oversight. The Federal Aviation Administration “has authority over safety issues” and DOT’s Office of the Secretary “has authority over aviation consumer protection issues,” the notice said. An advanced NPRM is the equivalent of an FCC notice of inquiry with an NPRM to follow. While the FCC released its own NPRM in December (http://bit.ly/1p2NiwM), the FCC alone cannot allow cellphone use in flight, the notice says. “Even if the FCC determines that cell phones or other mobile devices used during flight would not interfere with cellular networks and revises its ban, FAA safety regulations would still apply,” the notice said. “The FAA is responsible for determining whether cellular technology can safely be used on aircraft. Any installed equipment such as Airborne Access Systems would be subject to FAA certification, just like any other piece of hardware. In addition, the aircraft operator would have to determine that the use of this system will not interfere with the navigation and communications systems of the particular type of aircraft on which it will be used before any restrictions are lifted.”

Verizon Communications said Friday that it completed its buyout of full control of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone, which previously owned 45 percent of the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier. The deal, which the two telcos announced in September, was worth about $130 billion (CD Bulletin Sept 2 p1). The now-completed deal “provides us with opportunities for greater financial flexibility, enhanced operational efficiency and innovations that will benefit customers,” said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam in a statement. “We are confident it will fuel further growth in our business."

Global mobile device market trends continue to change rapidly, Tom Mainelli, IDC research director-tablets, told the Digital Entertainment World Conference Thursday. Consumers, for example, are holding on to their mobile devices for longer periods than in the past, he said. Consumers are, on average, keeping PCs for four or more years, tablets for three or more years, and smartphones two or more years, said Mainelli. However, consumers tend to keep iPads a little longer than Android tablets, he said. “If you buy a $79 Android tablet at CVS you're probably not going to keep it for four years,” he said. Consumers will likely start pushing off replacing their smartphones even longer because “we're sort of getting to a point in hardware where” small improvements in new models “really don’t drive people to buy a new phone,” he said. “Phablets” -- mobile devices that are a cross between smartphones and tablets -- were a “punch line” in Q1 2013, said Mainelli. But they were 15 percent of global smartphone shipments in Q4 2013, he said.

Verizon executives emphasized the importance of the FCC allowing package bidding if it adopts license sizes smaller than Economic Area licenses in the AWS-3 auction. The comments came in a meeting with Wireless Bureau staff. “If the Commission were to adopt smaller license areas, these licenses must ‘nest’ into existing EAs, and it is even more imperative that auction participants be able to combine licenses through package bids,” said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1dSDdhP).

Inserting unlicensed services in the 600 MHz band, without unduly expanding the size of the guard bands and duplex gap, “will impair the adjacent mobile spectrum blocks and effectively destroy the fungibility of the licensed mobile spectrum that the Commission is working so hard to repurpose through the upcoming voluntary incentive auction,” Qualcomm told the FCC Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1gm79kk). The company was responding to a filing by Google and Broadcom, which “only analyzed a single use case” of the adjacent channel out-of-band emissions of the unlicensed device into an LTE user device, Qualcomm said. Google and Broadcom “completely overlooked the impact of blocking,” Qualcomm said. “Inserting unlicensed services in the 600 MHz band would be unwise from both technical and economic perspectives, will create wide areas of interference and impair the value of the adjacent licensed spectrum, and should therefore be avoided.”

The audience for mobile advertisements has almost doubled since Q1 2013, said a report Citrix released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1d5oBaG). The software company said that although the mobile ad audience is growing considerably, only 2 percent of a mobile user’s daily data volume is generated through mobile ads. The report also found health apps are one of the fastest growing mobile app categories. But mobile games still rule, with 68 percent of responders to a Citrix survey saying they were “slightly addicted” to at least one game. Citrix’s ByteMobile analyzed the mobile data traffic, and market researcher Wakefield conducted the consumer surveys during 2014’s Q1.

The FCC should drop any proposal to require wireless carriers to submit information for public disclosure on cell site operational status during and immediately after major disasters, CTIA said in reply comments filed at the FCC, reflecting carrier comments during the initial comment cycle (CD Jan 22 p2). “The proposed metric will not serve consumers,” CTIA said (http://bit.ly/MANDrW). “Rather, the metric would send consumers the incorrect message that site outage statistics are a reasonable proxy for the reliability of individual providers’ networks and the quality of their resiliency practices. Indeed, the proposed [Disaster Information Reporting System] DIRS-related metric is statistically meaningless.” The requirement won’t make the public safer, CTIA said. It could have “the negative unintended consequences of creating incentives to favor individual cell site restoration over service restoration, and it may create disincentives for carriers to engage in the type of voluntary, mutual assistance that has successfully characterized restoration efforts on an ongoing basis.” PCIA offered similar advice: “The record demonstrates that additional regulation is unnecessary because robust competition among wireless providers drives investment in network resiliency and [they] plan extensively for rapid restoration of service” (http://bit.ly/MAO7hz). But Consumers Union and Public Knowledge said in joint replies that after reading the record they still believe the data filing mandate would be good for consumers. “We remain convinced that public disclosure of wireless network performance and recovery during and after major weather events and other disasters, using the proposed metric, would provide consumers with useful information,” PK and CU said (http://bit.ly/1nOlI2Y). “We remain convinced that it would also help promote important improvements in network strength and resiliency."

T-Mobile US said the U.S. position should be to support allocations for wireless broadband at 470-698 MHz and 5350-5470 MHz bands at next year’s WRC. “T-Mobile advises ... that in order to reach the National Broadband Plan’s goal of identifying 500 MHz of spectrum for mobile flexible use, 300 MHz of which should be under 3.7 GHz and available by 2015, additional studies should be done on sharing or repurposing such bands,” T-Mobile said in a filing at the FCC (http://bit.ly/MALFYp).

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology will begin a 45-day public trial of Comsearch’s TV band database system Tuesday. The trial is intended to let the public access and test Comsearch’s database system “to ensure that it correctly identifies channels that are available for unlicensed radio transmitting devices that operate in the TV band ... properly registers radio transmitting facilities entitled to protection, and provides protection to authorized services and registered facilities as specified in the rules,” said OET in a public notice Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1eSCCYY). Parties may participate in the trial by accessing Comsearch’s test facility at http://comsearch.whitespacedatabase.com, it said. Participants are encouraged to test features like the channel availability calculator, the multichannel video programming distributor receive site and the wireless microphone registration utility, it said. Registrations for MVPD receive sites and temporary broadcast auxiliary service links that are made during the trial period will be deleted by Comsearch after the trial, it said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau proposed a fine of $6,000 against small carrier Assist Wireless for “apparently willfully and repeatedly” violating the commission’s hearing aid compatibility status report filing requirements, in a notice of apparent liability released Tuesday. The carrier failed to “timely file” its hearing aid compatibility status report for 2012, said the NAL (http://bit.ly/N7cFig).