Rural wireless carriers weren't helped by the FCC designated entity program in the AWS-3 auction and the agency should offer a rural phone company bidding credit in the TV incentive auction, representatives of NTCA, the Rural Wireless Association and the Blooston group of rural carriers said in meetings at the commission. They met with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly and aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Pai and O’Rielly criticized Dish Network’s use of DEs to win spectrum licenses at reduced prices in the AWS-3 auction. “More than half of the 70 qualified bidders in the auction were rural telcos or rural telco affiliates, yet only 28.9 percent of these entities were successful in winning any licenses,” the groups said, according to a filing in docket 14-170. “Less than half of the rural telcos that were successful bidders were able to qualify under the Commission’s DE rules as small businesses, and at the close of the auction rural bidders accounted for just $871,350 (or 0.024 percent) of the total $3.57 billion in bidding credits awarded.”

AT&T Wireless is part of a new loyalty program called Plenti, said American Express Wednesday. Plenti bills itself as the first U.S.-based coalition loyalty program, and comprises brands including American Express, AT&T Wireless, DirectEnergy, ExxonMobile, Hulu, Macy’s, Nationwide and Rite Aid. Shoppers can earn and use Plenti points for buying a variety of products, regardless of payment method, said the companies. Plenti customers can earn points and discounts using any form of payment accepted by the participating partners including cash, prepaid and debit or credit cards with every 1,000 accrued points translating to at least $10 in savings, said Plenti. Consumers can accumulate Plenti points when signing up for qualifying wireless services at AT&T, or for eligible charges on AT&T wireless bills. The free program launches this spring.

CTIA President Meredith Baker made two more leadership changes. Baker Wednesday named Tom Sawanobori senior vice president and chief technology officer. Sawanobori spent 20 years at Verizon and was “lead planner” of the carrier’s 4G LTE network, CTIA said. “With Tom leading the newly created CTO department, our ability to aid our members and serve as a technical resource to policymakers is greatly enhanced,” Baker said. Stephanie Mathews O’Keefe was named senior vice president-chief communications officer. She was formerly at the American Bankers Association. Baker also announced a series of promotions. She said Brad Gillen, formerly chief of staff, will be executive vice president “responsible for CTIA’s day-to-day management and strategic initiatives.” Gillen was an aide to Baker when she was an FCC member. Rocco Carlitti, formerly vice president-operations, is now senior vice president-chief financial officer. Amy Storey, formerly assistant vice president-public affairs, is now a vice president. Baker became CTIA president in June.

An FCC proposal to shift its enforcement officials away from the field to headquarters (see 1503110054) was recommended in a $745,603 study by Oceaneast Associates, commissioned by the agency, said a blog post by Michael Marcus, a former commission engineer. “Office closures and overall staff reductions will be balanced by increased field travel budgets, increased use of pre-positioned fixed equipment in locations where there is no field office, and establishment of a new quick-response,” Marcus wrote. The agency had no immediate comment.

In its latest un-carrier move, T-Mobile is going after the enterprise market, looking to take business customers from AT&T and Verizon with simplified rate cards, said CEO John Legere at an event Wednesday. Legere asked if anyone in the audience was on the Sprint network. When no one raised a hand, Legere said, “You fuckers are lying.” T-Mobile is gunning for Verizon's and AT&T’s business, Legere said. “They think their business is safe, and it’s not.” In 2014, T-Mobile earned 3 percent of the $83 billion spent by businesses on wireless services, so the aggressive pricing -- offering lines with unlimited talk and text and 1 GB of data for $15 each -- is something Legere said he can do because he’s attacking a business that T-Mobile doesn’t have. And customers can add more data per line or in a pool for the whole company at $4.75/GB for a 100 GB minimum, he said. Chief Operating Officer Mike Sievert said today is the beginning of a “major disruption in the business space.” T-Mobile is also partnering with GoDaddy to offer a free .com domain and website optimized for mobile viewing to businesses customers that buy the new plan with at least one line of additional paid data. “I think that’s a big deal, maybe not in mega corporations, but for the businesses that American runs on,” Legere said. T-Mobile also announced the “un-contract” and carrier freedom. Legere said he will sign a contract to his customers that says the rates may go down but they will not go up, making promotional plans permanent. When it comes to getting more customers, Legere is willing to pay early termination fees plus up to $650 for those who are still paying for or renting their phones. He said there's a war analogy to be made in this announcement regarding the business market, saying “we’re bombing their factories.”

The FCC is wrong in findings in its net neutrality order that wireless subscribers can’t readily switch carriers, CTIA said Wednesday. “Based exclusively on a single filing of public interest groups that lacks basic analytical rigor, the FCC suggests that consumers have no effective ability to switch wireless carriers today,” said a blog post by Krista Witanowski, assistant vice president-regulatory affairs. The order calls switching costs “a significant factor” in wireless carriers’ ability to “threaten the open nature of the Internet,” she said. It has never been easier for subscribers to switch providers, she said. “A simple trip to the mall or large retail store would ease any perceived concerns. It has never been easier for consumers to change mobile providers in this fiercely competitive mobile marketplace.”

The recently concluded AWS-3 auction in Canada shows the relative value placed on spectrum available to all carriers, BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk wrote Tuesday. In the Canadian auction, reserve spectrum fetched less than 10 cents per MHz/POP from smaller operators, while unrestricted spectrum attracted winning bids of $2.40 MHz/POP, Piecyk said. “Interestingly, the prices paid at the Canadian auction were not far off the $2.71/MHz/POP from the U.S. auction of similar spectrum,” he said. “That throws some cold water on what we consider an absurd assertion by spectrum ‘truthers’ that Dish’s participation in the AWS-3 auction did anything more than reveal the true value that wireless operators assign to mid-band spectrum relative to the incremental cost to split cell sites.”

T-Mobile appears to be the “lone winner in a sector-wide price war,” analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson said in a note to investors Tuesday. “In Q4, total wireless industry service revenue growth turned negative for the first time ever,” Moffett said. “Against this grim backdrop,” T-Mobile’s adjusted total revenue grew 16.6 percent in Q4, he said. Service margins expanded by 590 basis points and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization grew by “an extraordinary” 41.3 percent, he said.

A lack of spectrum in rural markets isn't the reason Sprint and T-Mobile aren't offering service in many rural markets, Mobile Future said in a white paper arguing against setting aside spectrum for competitors to AT&T and Verizon in future spectrum auctions. The paper, by American Rural CEO Diane Smith, examines the five most-rural states: the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and New Mexico. All four national carriers hold spectrum in every county in those states, Smith wrote. “In counties where Sprint and T-Mobile provide no coverage on their networks, the companies hold on average more than 84 MHz and more than 32 MHz of spectrum, respectively.” The real impediment is economic, the paper said. The “revenue potential” for a wireless carrier in a major urban center is $248,000 per square mile of service, which drops to $262 per square mile in the least densely populated areas, Smith said. “The premise that Sprint and T-Mobile will use additional low-band spectrum to enter rural markets and compete with established providers is simply not supported by the facts,” she said. Sprint and T-Mobile had no immediate comment.

Granting Citizens Bank’s petition for the FCC to clarify or issue a declaratory ruling on robocalls would “conflict with both the plain language” of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and previous commission rulings, said the National Association of Consumer Advocates and National Consumer Law Center in comments posted Monday in docket 02-278. Citizens Bank’s Jan. 16 petition asked the commission to clarify that a called party that advertises its cellphone number provides express consent to receive autodialed or prerecorded nontelemarketing informational calls to the number, said a Feb. 12 Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice. Comments were due Monday, replies are due March 31. The “sweeping” petition would “unnecessarily expose consumers to nuisance robocalls whenever they release their telephone number for a limited purpose in an entirely different context,” the groups said. Granting the petition would mean “an out-of-work mother who posts a resume containing her cellular telephone number online … has consented to receiving ‘informational’ robocalls on her cellphone from FOX about American Idol,” the groups said. The petition also would mean the woman consented to receiving debt collection calls on her cellphone, NACA and NCLA said. Citizens Bank said in its March 13 comments it's facing a TCPA class-action lawsuit from a defaulted debtor who was called on a cellphone number she had advertised for her business.