LED billboard company D3 LED agreed to pay a $40,000 fine and implement a compliance plan to resolve an FCC investigation into whether D3 marketed LED signs without the required labeling and user manual disclosures. The Enforcement Bureau has been clamping down on LED billboard companies for violations of RF rules (see 1805180068). The company didn’t comment.

Lattice Semiconductor is scuttling its millimeter wave business, a move expected to result in $25 million of mostly noncash restructuring and impairment charges in Q2 and a $13 million annualized reduction in operating expenses, it said Wednesday. The company doesn't expect a significant impact to its potential full-year 2018 revenue, citing strength in other areas. It will support customers’ product and support requirements during the transition, it said. Interim CEO Glen Hawk said millimeter wave was determined to be a noncore business, "unable to achieve the required near-term scale to be profitable or to warrant any further investment." The company will focus on improving operating efficiencies and accelerating revenue growth of its existing semiconductor solutions in control, connect and compute applications, Hawk said. In September, President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking Canyon Bridge Fund’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Lattice Semiconductor on national security grounds (see 1709130056). Lattice's Q2 earnings call is July 26.

Hollywood actors and producers, advocacy organizations and artists wrote federal agencies Wednesday warning of RF dangers. The letter seeks a federal warning on the danger of exposure to Wi-Fi “just like the city of Berkeley’s Right To Know Ordinance for cellphones” and “federal public health fact sheets about ways to reduce exposure to wireless radiation, particularly for children in schools.” Once systems are in place, they can’t be recalled, the letter said: “Wireless technology was not tested for safety before going into the consumer marketplace including schools and nurseries.” The letter was sent to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Don Wright, acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Signers included Claudia Black and Camille Cooper; singer Laura Dawn; authors Naomi Wolf and Richard Greene; and the Center for Environmental Health, Environmental Media Association and California Brain Tumor Association. The Wi-Fi Alliance “takes any concern about the alleged health impact of Wi-Fi technology seriously,” a spokesperson said. “A range of scientific research undertaken to-date concludes there is no evidence that low-power wireless networks pose health threats to users or to the general public. Wi-Fi technology meets all national and international safety requirements and emits signals that are typically hundreds to thousands of times below international safety limits.” The FCC and CTIA didn't comment.

The FCC set the pleading cycle on T-Mobile’s proposed buy of Sprint in an order released Wednesday. Petitions to deny are due Aug. 27, oppositions Sept. 17 and replies Oct. 9, in docket 18-197. The two filed a 678-page public interest statement supporting the deal a month ago (see 1806190062). They likely face a tough road to regulatory approval (see 1807170041). The FCC said preliminary review of the applicants’ submitted data indicates that “in counties in which there is geographical overlap, New T-Mobile would hold a maximum of 361.7 megahertz of spectrum.” Sprint will hold its quarterly results call Aug. 1 at 8:30 a.m. EDT, the carrier said separately Wednesday.

Two more LED billboard companies agreed to pay fines and implement compliance plans to end FCC investigations into whether they marketed LED signs without the required labeling and user manual disclosures. Yaham LED USA agreed to pay a $20,000 penalty, Prismview, $14,000. Neither commented.

GE Appliances launched an app that sends cooking instructions to a connected microwave. General Electric said smartphone users can scan barcodes on packaging. The microwave will be bundled with an Amazon Echo Dot.

The FCC is on strong jurisdictional footing in moving forward on wireless infrastructure rules, said Seth Cooper, senior fellow at the Free State Foundation. “The Commission’s reform proposals are based on express statutory authority and backed by the Constitution,” Cooper wrote Tuesday. “Shot clocks, deemed granted remedies, limits on excessive fees, and similar reforms don’t require local governments to directly implement a federal regulatory scheme. ... Court precedents reinforce these conclusions.”

Sprint deployed more outdoor small cells in its most-recent quarter than in the previous two years combined and now has thousands, said Scott Santi, head-network deployment and operations. “With our massive Next-Gen Network investment we’ve significantly ramped up our numbers,” Santi blogged Tuesday. “We also use small cells indoors, from hotels to airports, stadiums to concerts halls and more. We have several types of small cells, including the award-winning Sprint Magic Box." He said "this low cost, self-configuring all-wireless small cell provides indoor coverage averaging up to 30,000 square feet. And it improves data speeds on average” by 200 percent.

The Internet Innovation Alliance urged the FCC to conclude mobile broadband is a fully “functional” substitute for fixed broadband in its next report under a Telecom Act Section 706 mandate. Commissioners voted 3-2 in February to keep a 25/3 Mbps fixed benchmark and concluded mobile isn't a full substitute (see 1802050002). IIA cited a CivicScience survey it commissioned that nearly equal numbers of U.S. consumers preferred mobile broadband to fixed broadband for accessing the internet, and 26 percent favored fixed wireless to 23 percent mobile. Twenty percent had no preference, while 14 percent preferred fiber. Seven percent preferred DSL, 4 percent liked other services, 3 percent cited satellite broadband, and 3 percent prefer dial-up service. CivicScience surveyed at least 10,000 U.S. consumers in June. The results should indicate to the FCC it should “take a fresh look to update, modernize, and acknowledge the essential equivalence of mobile broadband access to fixed access in its approach” to the Section 706 reports, IIA said Tuesday.

Hours before the 3 p.m. EDT start of Amazon Prime Day (see 1807160059), NPD reported that its Checkout receipt-mining service found online consumer tech dollar purchases jumped 16 percent in the 12 months ended May from the same period a year earlier. E-commerce shopping “continues to increase across the consumer electronics landscape,” said NPD Monday. The average spending per purchase declined 7 percent year over year, “indicating that while more purchases are being completed online, these transactions are increasingly from categories that have items with lower average selling prices,” it said. NPD estimates 43 percent of the U.S. adult online-buying population made at least one consumer tech product purchase in the 12 months ended May, an increase of six percentage points from a year earlier, it said. Mobile phone accessories (22 percent) were the most popular items purchased, followed by portable audio (18 percent) and portable chargers (13 percent). “Growing online purchase frequency, especially of lower priced ‘grab and go’ items such as phone cases, screen protectors, portable chargers, and wired headphones, is shifting customer traffic from in-store to online,” said Stephen Baker, NPD vice president-industry adviser. “This shift is why today’s retailers focus on driving consumers into the store for big ticket, highly interactive purchases like TVs, where a benefit can be seen to shopping in a physical store, and allowing the online channel to focus on more transactional consumer interactions.”