U.S. Cellular became the first wireless carrier to offer weBoost signal boosters to its customers, both companies said in a news release Monday. WeBoost is the company formerly called Wilson Electronics. U.S. Cellular plans to offer three models at its stores: Home 4G, which boosts cellular signals in one to two rooms of a household or office; Connect 4G, with enough power to boost signals throughout an entire home or larger workspace; and Connect 4G-X, which boosts signals throughout a larger indoor space.

Globalstar’s terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) won’t have detrimental effects on Bluetooth devices, Globalstar said in an ex parte notice posted at the FCC Monday in docket 13-213. Globalstar urged the commission to allow it to provide TLPS mobile broadband service in its licensed spectrum at 2483.5 to 2495 MHz and adjacent unlicensed spectrum at 2473 to 2483.5 MHz. TLPS will “be a good neighbor” (see 1503240047) to Bluetooth operations within the unlicensed ISM band at 2400 to 2483.5 MHz, it said. TLPS demos confirmed there won’t be “discernible” effects for real-world consumers and end users, Globalstar said. FCC staff tested two Ruckus wireless access points enabled for TLPS operations in Globalstar’s licensed spectrum and adjacent unlicensed spectrum on March 24 and 25, the company said in an ex parte notice posted Monday. The Office of Engineering Technology wanted Globalstar to show that TLPS is compatible with other unlicensed services, emailed Globalstar Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Barbee Ponder. “We are quite confident that we answered their questions,” he said. Commission staff conducted emissions tests of RF radiation from TLPS access points for transmit power levels and spectral emissions masks information, Globalstar said. The access points were also used in the TLPS demonstration March 6, 9 and 10, it said. AT4 wireless, Jarvinian Ventures and Roberson and Associates attended the March 24 and 25 test, Globalstar said. No further TLPS demos are planned by the FCC, Ponder said. Globalstar has “come under attack from companies such as Gerst Capital and Kerrisdale Capital through endless filings of ex parte notices,” said two Globalstar investors in ex parte comments posted March 27. They urged the commission to take action in the proceeding. These filings “lack merit” and should be disregarded, they said in separate comments. The commission should decide using facts, not “the endless filings of those who would profit from an FCC rejection of the Globalstar petition,” said Mark Walton, who has a financial investment in Globalstar. Approving TLPS could “help relieve the spectrum crunch” and create more than 90,000 jobs, according to the American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research, said Jeremy Berry, a Globalstar investor. TLPS could increase U.S. Wi-Fi capacity by one third, he said.

China, the world’s largest smartphone market, saw Q4 handset shipments reach 105 million, a 16 percent “sequential” increase from Q3, Bharat Book Bureau, the India-based market research firm, said Friday in a report. Overall smartphone shipments in China declined 7.9 percent for all of 2014 to 388.8 million units, the report said. Bharat estimates 248 models of smartphones from all suppliers were launched in China Q4, it said. Apple rode the “white hot” sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to the top market share position in China for Q4, when it shipped a total of 17.3 million iPhones of various models, it said. Supplier Xiaomi lagged only slightly behind Apple with 17 million units shipped Q4, it said. IDC has estimated that Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest distributor of smartphones behind Samsung and Apple.

Only 16 percent of current iPhone users would "never consider” upgrading or switching to a Samsung smartphone, ecoATM said a survey it commissioned found. The survey canvassed 637 iPhone users and was conducted Feb. 22-23, ecoATM said. That’s about a week before Samsung announced its Galaxy S 6 and Galaxy S 6 Edge on March 1 for April delivery (see 1503040051). Nearly a third of iPhone users canvassed said they would switch to a Samsung “for the right price and features,” ecoATM said. “Price may be the biggest factor for iPhone owners, with 42 percent reporting they would consider upgrading” to a new Samsung phone if offered the upgrade for free or for a very low price, it said. As for the features that might inspire iPhone users to switch to a Samsung, 21 percent would consider it for longer battery life, 18 percent for a larger screen size, it said. But brand loyalty "plays an important role” in iPhone nation, it said.

Consumers Union submitted to the FCC a petition with 130,000 signatures from consumers urging the agency not to grant several petitions for clarifications and exemptions against rules prohibiting non-emergency robocalls to cellphones, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 02-278. The group said earlier last week it was making the filing (see 1503250038). Utilities are asking the FCC for leniency under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in what some called an age of cellphones (see 1503270020).

The recently completed AWS-3 auction demonstrated that licensed spectrum remains valuable, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a blog post Friday. “Although some argue that the future lies only with unlicensed or shared spectrum, this view ignores the fact that our nation’s commercial wireless carriers still seek exclusive spectrum in order to be able to maintain quality of service and network control,” he said. The auction showed the paired spectrum blocks are much more valuable to industry than unpaired spectrum, he said. The auction also showed that location matters. "As expected, the licenses covering the top 30 metropolitan areas, which account for approximately 10 percent of the licenses offered, brought in 79 percent of the overall gross revenues. This is nothing against medium- or small-sized markets, but this fact is important as the Commission looks toward the incentive auction and issues raised by potential market impairments.” The auction also showed that mid-band spectrum remains valuable and highlighted the need for the FCC to address its designated entity rules. Dish Network was able to indirectly buy the second most AWS-3 spectrum of any player in the auction at a discounted price through DEs Northstar and SNR Wireless (see 1501300051). He didn't directly cite Dish. This major company was “able to use this structure to outbid not only small businesses and rural telephone companies, but also some of the country's largest wireless providers,” he said. “If these bidding credits are granted, which I take no position on at the current time, the rules would allow these licenses to be ‘flipped’ to another company after five years without repaying a penny of the subsidy.”

Carriers disclosed pre-order and pricing plans Thursday for the Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 edge smartphones that launched at Mobile World Congress earlier this month. Sprint said the 32 GB S 6 will be available free as part of an $80 monthly lease plan over 24 months that includes unlimited talk, text and data on the Sprint network; international value roaming in Telefonica countries; and annual upgrades. Sprint will continue its promotion offering to pay all of customers' costs to switch to Sprint from another carrier, including the contract and whatever is owed on the device. Price for the Galaxy S 6 edge with a 24-month lease is $5 monthly after a $20 per month lease credit, Sprint said, and the monthly charge paired with the Sprint Unlimited Plus Plan is $85 per month. Sprint's Boost Mobile unit will offer the S 6 (32 GB) in black for $649 as a no-contract purchase option, the carrier said. Preregistration began Thursday at the website. Boost Mobile's Data Boost Up plan with automatic payments is $35 per month for unlimited talk and text and 2.5 GB of high-speed data, it said. Availability for the S 6 and S 6 edge on Sprint and Boost Mobile is April 10. U.S. Cellular announced its presale Thursday for the Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 edge beginning Friday in stores and online. U.S. Cellular has pricing options including $0 down using installment pricing over 20 months, it said.

Representatives of CTIA disputed arguments by Google, NCTA, Federated Wireless and various public interest groups that the FCC should “effectively bar” LTE-unlicensed from the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band. The FCC is moving toward final rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band and tweaking its rules after several comment rounds (see 1502050049). In meetings with officials from the FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, a filing in docket 12-354 said, CTIA said: “It is not the agency’s role to make technology choices. LTE-U is a promising new technology and one possible solution that does not preclude other air interface solutions that meet the FCC’s technical requirements.” The order also should support devices that are tunable across the 3.5 GHz band and encourage investment by Priority Access Licenses that pay for better access to the band, it said.

The record developed so far supports the wisdom of the FCC’s proposal to permit personal/portable unlicensed operations in a 6 MHz channel of the duplex gap after the TV incentive auction, Google said in comments filed in docket 12-268. Opponents of unlicensed devices in the gap make some wrong assumptions in pointing to potential problems, Google said. Opponents “assume unjustifiable receiver-sensitivity levels,” fail to take account of expected attenuation and “arbitrarily handicap LTE performance to suggest" LTE devices "are more susceptible to interference than real devices,” Google said.

Kyocera launched a national mobile phone takeback program for consumers wanting to dispose of unused cellphones of any brand, the company said Wednesday. Kyocera said it’s working with SecondWave Recycling, which promotes free phone recycling to support charities. For every four phones recycled for their raw materials, Kyocera will donate $1 to Cell Phones For Soldiers, a nonprofit that provides free communication services to active-duty military members and veterans, Kyocera said. Nearly 2 billion mobile phones are sold globally each year, but only 13 percent of unused phones are recycled in the U.S., with the remaining 87 percent going to landfills or incinerators, Kyocera said. In the take-back program, donors can print free shipping labels at Kyocera’s sustainability website and Kyocera will provide shipping containers for phones at no charge to those who need them, the company said. SecondWave will receive the phones and break them down for their recyclable raw materials, it said.