Jimm Phillips

Apple must wait until Dec. 6 to argue in court for its request for a permanent ban on the U.S. sale of eight Samsung smartphones, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said in an order Tuesday. Apple was initially set to argue for the permanent ban at a previously-scheduled Sept. 20 hearing, at which Koh was expected to issue a final decision on the outcome of Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung over design and utility patent violations.

Apple wants a ban on the sale of eight Samsung mobile phones within the U.S., the company said in a filing Monday in the U.S. District Court, San Jose. Apple is seeking a ban on seven phones in Samsung’s Galaxy line, plus Samsung’s Droid Charge, according to the filing, which followed a federal jury’s decision Friday that Samsung infringed on multiple Apple iPhone design and utility patents. The jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages, though that award is not official until U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh renders a final decision on the case at a hearing Sept. 20. Samsung is likely to appeal (CD Aug 28 p6).

Samsung Electronics vowed to fight on in its legal battle with Apple over allegations of intellectual property violations, saying the company “will continue to do our utmost until our arguments have been accepted” (http://xrl.us/bnnd6h). A jury for the U.S. District Court of Northern California said late Friday that Samsung infringed on multiple Apple design and utility patents related to Apple’s iPhone products, awarding Apple more than $1 billion in damages. The jury did not find for any of the claims Samsung made in a countersuit, in which the company sought $421 million in damages, according to court documents.

Two mobile carriers are set to expand their use of unlimited data plans, even as a new analysis shows Verizon Wireless’s shared data plans are doing well and AT&T is set to begin offering plans of its own. T-Mobile announced Wednesday that it will begin offering a new unlimited data plan option starting Sept. 5 that eliminates connection throttling. Meanwhile, MetroPCS announced late Tuesday it’s offering a new promotional rate on its existing unlimited data plan.

Verizon Wireless co-owner Vodafone criticized a decision by the U.K. Office of Communications to allow a U.K. mobile carrier co-owned by T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom (DT) to operate what will be that country’s first 4G LTE service. Ofcom approved an application by Everything Everywhere (EE), co-owned by DT and France Telecom, to use its 1800 MHz spectrum in the U.K. to operate the service. Ofcom-issued licenses will allow EE to start the service as soon as Sept. 11, the regulator said in a written statement.

AT&T announced Friday that only subscribers on the new “Mobile Share” shared data plan will be able to use the popular iPhone FaceTime app on the carrier’s mobile network, which prompted renewed charges Monday that restrictions on the app’s use violated FCC rules. All iPhones are currently only able to use the app via Wi-Fi, but will be able to use it on mobile networks on the new iOS6 system set to debut this fall. Last month, speculation centered on whether AT&T would charge users a fee to use the app on its mobile network, prompting public interest groups to charge that such a move would violate the FCC’s Open Internet rules (CD July 19 p11). News that mobile use of the app would be restricted to “Mobile Share” subscribers renewed those charges. “The FCC’s rules prohibit such blatantly anti-competitive conduct by wireless companies,” Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said in a statement. “Such behavior would be a problem no matter what Internet platform you choose. It would be unimaginable on your home broadband connection. Apple’s FaceTime comes pre-installed on a Macbook Pro, too, but no home broadband provider would dream of blocking the app there unless you'd signed up for a more expensive data plan.” AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said AT&T does not believe their decision to limit mobile use of FaceTime violates FCC rules. “FaceTime is available to all of our customers today over Wi-Fi and we're now expanding its availability even further as an added benefit of our new Mobile Share data plans,” he said.

Members of the Communications Workers of America formally accepted contracts with two AT&T divisions and are considering “tentative” contracts with three others, CWA announced Friday. AT&T wireline employees represented by CWA have voted to accept three-year contracts with AT&T Midwest and AT&T Corp., AT&T said. The CWA reached a tentative agreement on the contracts July 21, the carrier said. The AT&T Midwest agreement covers more than 13,000 employees in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. The AT&T Corp. agreement covers 5,700 employees across the country, AT&T said.

AT&T’s expected buildout of its 4G LTE network may spark another wave of data usage growth -- and the carrier stands to benefit from that investment, said Chief Financial Officer John Stephens. “We expect that when the LTE buildout is complete for us next year, and devices catch up with our buildout, that we're going to see another step up,” he said at an Oppenheimer investor conference in Boston Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnkue5): “Will it grow at the same rate it’s grown in the past five years? Possibly.” Overall mobile data consumption in the U.S. will reach 2 exabytes this year, said Chetan Sharma Consulting, a wireless consulting firm (http://xrl.us/bnkt4z).

ISPs participating in the FCC’s Broadband Measurement Group will study and report back on how often broadband subscribers continue to use legacy equipment after they have upgraded to a faster broadband service, an agency official told us. ISP representatives had raised concerns about the issue when the group met Wednesday to plan out the next speed test report (CD Aug 9 p4). The representatives claimed legacy equipment could cause a subscriber’s broadband connection to run slower than it normally would, and could thus affect speed test results. The ISPs plan to report back on the issue at the next meeting, and will discuss policies for addressing the problem, the agency official said. The group will discuss the issue and will determine what steps they will need to take to respond to those concerns, the official said.

Last week’s Asia-Pacific Telecommunity meeting did not end with a formal set of proposals for the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), potentially damaging the region’s influence in the lead-up to the conference, said David Gross, former State Department international communications and information coordinator. But the general consensus coming out of the meeting bodes well for the U.S. position on whether the conference, led by the ITU, should adopt controversial proposals to change how the Internet is regulated, he said. Gross said he attended the Asia-Pacific meeting in Bangkok as chair of the Ad Hoc World Conference on International Telecommunications Working Group, which represents 15 major multinational telecom and Internet companies.