Cricket Wireless teamed with GameStop to offer Cricket’s no-annual contract service in more than 2,800 GameStop locations in the U.S. The service will be available for sale next month, Cricket said Monday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1qHCAwg). Phased rollout is expected to be completed by the end of October, it said.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau Friday rejected a waiver request from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission asking that its use of frequencies 159.045 MHz and 159.075 MHz as mobile relay repeater transmit channels be granted co-primary rather than secondary status. The Pennsylvania commission used the frequencies for 40 years before recently discovering they had secondary status, the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1u7bhOl). “We are not persuaded by the Turnpike’s hyperbolic claim that secondary operation ‘has technically, financially and operationally placed immense challenges and impediments on the Turnpike’s present and future use of its system,'” the bureau said. “The claim that -- after 40 years of apparently interference-free operation -- it is going to have to cease operations on a moment’s notice is wholly speculative.”
The FCC opened a docket seeking comment on mobile device theft, supplementing work by the Working Group on Mobile Device Theft Prevention, formed under its Technological Advisory Council. The docket number is 14-143. “The new docket will allow industry and consumers to share information to supplement the efforts of the working group,” said an agency public notice Friday (http://bit.ly/1qlqhHB).
The decision to vacate the ruling requiring a warrant to access cellphone location data doesn’t indicate the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will ultimately reverse the original decision, American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Chris Calabrese told us Friday. “The full 11th Circuit will now take up this question, and we are hopeful that they agree with the original three-judge panel that police must get a warrant before collecting sensitive and detailed cellphone location data,” he said. Privacy and civil liberties advocates had hailed the ruling (CD June 13 p9) as providing some clarity in the legislatively stalled debate over the right to privacy of electronic data. “The Fourth Amendment privacy protections for our cellphone location information are an exceptionally important issue that courts across the country are just starting to address,” Calabrese said.
The launch of a new iPhone model historically has caused “major depreciation” in the resale value of older iPhones, said uSell.com, which calls itself the “leading online marketplace for used gadgets.” With Tuesday’s expected launch of the iPhone 6, uSell.com examined thousands of used iPhone sales on its platform after the launch of previous new models, it said. It found that two weeks after a new iPhone launch, old iPhones lose about 11 percent of their resale value. After four weeks, they depreciate about 15 percent, it said. By the seventh week, an old iPhone will have lost 21 percent of its value, it said.
The more smart watches that hit the market -- from consumer electronics companies trying to ignite sales and luxury watchmakers trying to protect their turf -- the more industry watchers are questioning the need for the category. All eyes are on Apple’s announcement Tuesday in the hopes that Apple gives the world a shiny, compelling reason to buy an extra gadget in the way it created the smartphone. In a blog post Friday, NPD Connected Intelligence analyst Eddie Hold said smart watches haven’t added value to date. “It doesn’t do anything that my smartphone doesn’t already handle with ease,” Hold said. “It’s just another gadget (and a rather bulky one at that) that I need to remember to charge at night.” Smart watch companies hope consumers are more jazzed about the technology than cynical observers. Timex has jumped into the smart watch market and Guess linked up with Martian Watches last month, while at IFA last week Asus, LG, Samsung and Sony rolled out their own versions.
Pioneer will team with Treasure Data, a supplier of cloud-based data collection services, on a business alliance to develop telematics data services for the global automotive industry, the companies said Thursday. Using the Treasure Data cloud service, Pioneer will release new data and analytics-based services for automobile manufacturers and related businesses, including dealers, repair shops, insurance and rental car companies, they said. They also plan to “drive new research” on more effective use of automotive telematics data, they said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1lCfcRS).
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday vacated its previous ruling that police need a warrant to acquire cellphone location data from service providers (CD June 13 p9). The decision (http://1.usa.gov/1qhBjxx) said a majority of the 11th Circuit judges voted to rehear the case en banc (No. 12-12928). The previous ruling had been seen as a remarkable victory for privacy advocates fighting for legal protection of electronic data (WID July 14 p1).
In North America, LTE technology provided 33 percent of the total 391 million mobile connections for the first half of 2014, a 4G Americas report found. North America has 45 percent of all LTE connections worldwide; Asia Pacific has 36 percent; and Western Europe, more than 13 percent, it said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1r93FWz). Research for the report was done by Ovum, 4G Americas said. North America has an LTE penetration rate of nearly 36 percent, it said. Western Europe’s penetration rate is 8 percent, and Asia Pacific has a nearly 3 percent penetration rate, it said. Subscriber demand for mobile broadband data applications and services in the U.S. and Canada is driven in part by innovations in regulatory policy, new advanced LTE networks and significant smartphone penetration, 4G Americas said. Although LTE subscriptions remain low in Latin America, they're growing rapidly, with 4.8 million connections at the end of Q2 2014, “representing an annual increase of 900 percent at the end of the second quarter,” it said. Global LTE subscriptions grew 179 percent year-over-year from 2012 to 2013, it said. They're expected to grow 95 percent from 2013 to 2014 to reach 386 million subscriptions, it said.
The FirstNet board is getting five new members, the Department of Commerce said Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1nyZaUz). Among major changes, Paul Fitzgerald, sheriff of Story County, Iowa, will no longer be a board member. Fitzgerald made headlines last year when he sharply criticized the leadership of the board (CD April 24/13 p1). Also leaving is Charles Dowd, a deputy police chief with the New York Police Department. But the board got two new first responders -- Chris Burbank, chief of police, Salt Lake City, and Richard Stanek, sheriff, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Also leaving the board are former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and the board’s original chairman, former telecom executive Sam Ginn. Other new members are James Douglas, former governor of Vermont; Annise Parker, mayor of Houston; and Frank Plastina, a technology executive from North Carolina. Ed Reynolds, a former telecom executive, was reappointed. The department noted that the terms of office for Ginn, Dowd, Fitzgerald and Reynolds expired Aug. 20.