Partial Economic Area (PEA) licenses aren’t a satisfactory alternative as a license size for the upcoming incentive TV auction, said representatives of the Rural Wireless Association and NTCA in a meeting with FCC officials. PEAs “remain too large to ensure the auction participation level necessary to ensure dissemination of licenses to small businesses and rural telephone companies,” the groups told the FCC in an ex parte filing. “For many carriers, the use of PEAs would preclude auction participation in much the same way as Economic Areas. … This is particularly true for carriers west of the Mississippi River.” The two associations want the FCC to offer license in the smaller Cellular Market Area-sized licenses.

The FCC Wireless Bureau gave Mobile Relay Associates a waiver so it can offer services in the “band edges” between Industrial/Business Pool spectrum and General Mobile Radio Service spectrum. MRA, which provides two-way radio communications, got permission to use frequency pairs 462/467.5375 and 462/467.7375 MHz in the Los Angeles, Denver, Las Vegas and Miami metropolitan areas. “Based on the record before us, we conclude that MRA has presented sufficient facts to meet the standard for grant of the requested waivers,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/LkUq8i).

The FCC should dedicate more spectrum in the 600 MHz and 5 GHz bands for unlicensed use, Wi-Fi Alliance officials said in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. In the 600 MHz band, the FCC should make four 6 MHz channels available to take advantage of legacy 20 MHz-wide Wi-Fi standards, alliance representatives said, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1b1JaY3). “The Wi-Fi Alliance noted that there has been little use of the spectrum dedicated for white spaces operation because of the uncertainty regarding the future use of the 600 MHz band."

Spectrum sharing rather than exclusive-use licenses must become “the new normal,” Wharton Professor Kevin Werbach says in a new white paper. “Spectrum policy should make a commitment to users of spectrum rather than merely to spectrum holders,” he said. Werbach said the nation’s orientation to spectrum needs to change (http://bit.ly/1aFmDCI). “Policy makers should acknowledge what engineers already recognize and businesses are already implementing: The future of spectrum is about various forms of sharing. Exclusive rights are still desirable, even essential, in some contexts. However, they will exist within a larger matrix of sharing arrangements to maximize available capacity."

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a proposal by American Tower Corp. (ATC) for a complete waiver of a requirement that it inspect the lighting on its towers, including “all automatic or mechanical control devices, indicators, and alarm systems associated with the antenna structure lighting to insure that such apparatus is functioning properly.” ATC previously got a partial waiver and must do the inspections annually rather than on a quarterly basis, the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1jY5WCC). ATC argues that “[a] complete waiver would relieve ATC of its existing obligation to make annual on-site inspections of towers, an obligation that no longer serves any discernable purpose, and would further the public interest by encouraging other tower owners to implement technologically advanced monitoring systems,” the bureau said. Comments are due Feb. 14, replies Feb. 22.

AT&T confirmed Monday that it “does not intend” to bid for U.K. telco Vodafone in the immediate future. The U.K. Panel on Takeovers and Mergers had asked AT&T to say whether it planned to bid for Vodafone following recent speculation about a possible offer. AT&T can’t make an offer for Vodafone for the next six months because of the statement, unless Vodafone agrees to the bid’s submission, another company makes an offer or the British government decides Vodafone’s circumstances have significantly changed (http://soc.att.com/1fi49ao).

A Sprint/T-Mobile US merger would be an effective challenge to the Verizon Wireless-AT&T “duopoly,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said Monday on Bloomberg TV. “We all need better scale and capability,” he said. “The question starts to be, how do you take the maverick and supercharge it? We either need more spectrum and capability and a lot more investment, or we need consolidation.” Speculation about possible discussions between Sprint majority owner SoftBank and T-Mobile majority owner Deutsche Telekom has continued in recent months, though experts have said a merger between the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. carriers could encounter trouble with federal regulators (CD Dec 17 p1). Sprint is certainly not T-Mobile’s only consolidation option, and “from a standpoint of companies consolidating to get better scale, I'm open to looking at options,” Legere said. Sprint and T-Mobile did not comment. Sprint separately announced Monday that its 4G LTE network has expanded into 40 additional markets, including Milwaukee and Salt Lake City. The carrier’s 4G LTE network now covers 340 markets (http://bit.ly/1hEC7pk).

Ericsson said Samsung will pay an initial $650 million, along with future royalty payments, as part of a cross-licensing agreement to end ongoing patent disputes between the companies (http://bit.ly/1btidco). The agreement covers the companies’ patents on the GSM, UMTS and LTE standards both companies use for their devices and networks, which had been the subject of a series of lawsuits beginning in 2012 in U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas, and complaints at the U.S. International Trade Commission (CD Jan 29/13 p16). Ericsson said it is committed to licensing its standard-essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms “for the benefit of the industry.” The company “always viewed litigation as a last resort,” said Ericsson Chief Intellectual Property Officer Kasim Alfalahi in a news release. Samsung said it too has “always preferred negotiations over litigation, and will continue adhering to [FRAND] licensing principles to assist in our industry’s advancement” (http://bit.ly/L3KUWv).

T-Mobile charged that a Nov. 13 paper by Mobile Future on spectrum aggregation limits in the TV incentive auction distorts the record. T-Mobile supports limits on how much spectrum any carrier can buy in the auction, a position opposed by Mobile Future. “Mobile Future treats vastly different types of spectrum as if they were of equal value,” T-Mobile said (http://bit.ly/KVMKJE). “The analysis attempts to draw parallels between AT&T’s and Verizon’s dominance of Auction 73, where they won 71.66 percent of the total MHz/POPs auctioned, to Clearwire’s acquisitions of 2.5 GHz spectrum in Auction 86. This analogy overlooks important differences between the large blocks of unencumbered ‘beachfront’ 700 MHz spectrum and the patchwork of 2.5 GHz spectrum licenses, which requires many more sites to provide the same coverage and provides significantly weaker indoor penetration capabilities.” Mobile Future also does not offer a complete view of wireless markets in 2014, T-Mobile said: “Mobile Future’s focus on the changing control of various licenses during the last ten years should not distract from today’s market reality: AT&T and Verizon have gained control of the vast majority of the most valuable wireless spectrum.” Mobile Future fired back. “While the facts in Mobile Future’s paper might be inconvenient for T-Mobile and its parent Deutsche Telekom, there is nothing in their filing that actually refutes them,” Mobile Future said in response. “The study carefully documents the successful history of the Commission’s auction and secondary market reforms and the wide range of beneficiaries of those policies, most especially the American people and the mobile innovators working so hard to meet their wireless needs. T-Mobile has actively participated in the secondary market and also in some spectrum auctions, while staying home for others. That is their right, but those business and network decisions are not the government’s job to make or to fix. Rather than pivoting to seek government advantage, T-Mobile would do better to focus on competing in a free and open market where they seem to be doing quite well without the government’s help."

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment on its fifth annual Report to Congress on State Collection and Distribution of 911 and Enhanced 911 Fees and Charges. The report is required by the NET 911 Act, which became law in 2008. The act “requires, among other things, that the Commission report whether 911 fees and charges collected by the states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and Indian territories (states and other reporting entities) are being used for any purpose other than to support 911 and Enhanced 911 (E911) services,” the bureau said Friday (http://bit.ly/1dVat92). “With this Public Notice, the Commission formally solicits public comment on the Fifth Report, the information provided to the Commission by states and other reporting entities, and the reported expenditure of funds for Next Generation 911 ... services.” Comments are due Feb. 24, replies March 24.