The American Bankers Association offered a compromise to the FCC on Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules on calls to cellphones. The agency is considering the group’s October petition (see 1410140162) asking that certain time-sensitive informational calls, which are placed with no charge to the called parties, be exempted from the TCPA restrictions. ABA offered the compromise in response to questions from FCC staff, it said in a filing posted by the FCC Friday in docket 02-278. ABA would accept a ruling that it must offer customers the option to opt out from automatic messages, the group said. But ABA proposes that a consumer’s opt-out request apply “only to the account and to the category of message in response to which the request was made,” it said. “For example, a consumer’s request not to receive future data security breach notifications would not foreclose the financial institution from sending future alerts concerning questionable transactions on that or other accounts held at the institution, which also would include notice of an opt-out mechanism applicable to those messages.”

Reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act has extreme, negative implications for the Internet outside the U.S., said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter in a letter Friday to the FCC. “Specifically, the Title II approach, which could insert the government into the regulation of the broadband Internet more robustly than ever before, could embolden despotic and unfriendly regimes to assume additional powers in their nations,” Spalter said. “There is also a belief among some in the Administration that there is a distinction between internet access and the content and services delivered over the internet, and that leaders in Russia and China, among others, will respect that distinction when they interpret American policy. Even for most Americans, there is no such distinction.”

An FCC proposal to establish an air-to-ground mobile broadband service over the contiguous U.S. troubles the Association of Flight Attendants, representatives told agency officials, said a filing posted Friday in docket 13-114. “These concerns are similar in nature to those expressed in reply comments to another Commission proposal, one that would lift a long-standing ban on using cellphones for voice and data on flights,” the group said. “Either proposal would greatly enhance communications capabilities for terrorists and increase cyberwarfare vulnerabilities, leading to unacceptable risks of successful attacks on the United States aviation system.”

CTIA made the case against treating mobile the same as fixed broadband under net neutrality rules, in its report on a meeting with aides to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. Consumers have more choices for mobile broadband and it's technically more difficult to provide, CTIA said in a filing in docket 14-28. “Wireless is different and the Commission was correct in 2010 in its decision not to subject mobile broadband to the same requirements as wireline broadband,” CTIA said. “Any additional rules that apply to wireless must take into account the unique competitive and technical attributes of wireless service and avoid impeding the differentiated offerings and choices mobile consumers enjoy today.”

Wireless carriers are likely to move away from aggressive pricing aimed at adding subscribers, especially in light of the high prices seen in the AWS-3 auction, said Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Mobile Ecosystem, Friday in a Fierce Wireless blog post. “AT&T and Verizon are going to have to figure out how to somehow fund the twin ambitions of additional spectrum to meet the data needs of customers, while finding additional market opportunities now that organic revenue growth in wireless is maturing.” Sprint and T-Mobile are also becoming more conservative, he said. “With all their financial obligations, I believe the wireless operators are going to be far less reckless, pricing-wise, than they have been over the past 18 months.” This has been a "pretty unique period" for wireless, with 10-20 percent reductions in price, more generous data allocations and aggressive iPhone and device buyout deals aimed at winning customers, he said.

Mobile video -- followed by music streaming and apps -- will be the key driver of global mobile data traffic in 2015, said a Gartner analysis released Thursday. Citing data from mobile providers, Gartner Research Director Jessica Ekholm said mobile video is generating half of all mobile data and will grow to more than 60 percent of mobile data consumption by 2018. Two variables in projected data usage are video-calling services and music streaming, Ekholm said. Five minutes of FaceTime video chat on a 3G network uses just 15 MB of data but as the number of video callers grows, “the collective total amount can be large,” she said. If users shift to higher bit rate music services, that could also affect data usage significantly, she said. “Mobile music streaming can easily generate hundreds of megabytes of data,” depending on the service; a user listening to Spotify can consume more than twice as much data as a Pandora user, she said. Overall, mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 59 percent this year to 52 terabytes, up from 33 terabytes last year due to newer, faster networks and growing numbers of consumers using more affordable 3G and 4G handsets. Mobile data growth is expected to continue into 2016 at a 53 percent clip to 80 million terabytes, she said. By 2018, half of North American mobile connections will use 4G networks, Ekholm said, and 4G users will generate 46 percent of all mobile data traffic, consuming nearly 5.5 GB of data monthly -- three times that of a 3G smartphone. Cisco this week projected a surge of mobile data usage in the coming years (see 1502030041).

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai jointly questioned how FCC rules could let Dish Network buy $13.3 billion worth of AWS-3 licenses for $10 billion using bidding credits (see 1502020039). “While most bidders put their own money on the line, some of the largest companies in the auction were using billions of taxpayer dollars. How is that possible?” they asked in an op-ed piece in Thursday's Wall Street Journal. They warned that despite Dish’s alleged manipulation of the designated entity program, the FCC may further loosen DE rules. “What is astonishing about the manipulation of the bidding process is how cavalier the parties are,” they wrote. "The two Dish-related companies -- Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless -- didn’t exist until a few months before the auction, and each reported to the FCC that it was a ‘very small business’ as neither had any gross revenues. Yet together the two companies magically managed to place bids more than seven times those of spectrum-hungry T-Mobile.” The FCC had no comment.

The Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Text-to-911 Readiness and Certification Registry is now available, the FCC Public Safety Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday. The Text-to-911 Registry "lists each PSAP by FCC PSAP ID and name, the county of operation, the primary point of contact for coordinating text-to-911 service, the method by which the PSAP will accept texts, and the state or local governing entity authorizing the PSAP to accept texts,” the bureau said.

Security vulnerabilities in hotel Wi-Fi networks are being exploited by hackers to steal people’s passwords and other sensitive information, Carol Kando-Pineda, counsel for the FTC's Consumer & Business Education Division, wrote in a blog post Wednesday. If using a public network is necessary, Kando-Pineda recommended taking precautions such as ensuring personal information or login information is used only on websites that are fully encrypted, using a different password on different websites, logging out once leaving a website, paying attention to Web browser alerts and keeping browser and security software up to date. “If you regularly need to access online accounts through public Wi-Fi networks, you may want to use a virtual private network,” she wrote.

The FCC gave “significant weight” to the road map by APCO, the National Emergency Number Association and four major carriers in approving rules for wireless indoor location accuracy, the FCC said in the order, posted on its website. “No single technological approach will solve the challenge of indoor location, and no solution can be implemented overnight,” the order said. “The requirements we adopt are technically feasible and technologically neutral, so that providers can choose the most effective solutions from a range of options.” The commissioners approved the order at their monthly meeting last week (see 1501290066).