The FCC Wireless Bureau approved applications by Windstream and Leon County, Texas, for historic review of wireless facilities during the pandemic (see here and here).

Post-COVID-19 telework will spur a 22% decline in “office-based working environments,” reported Strategy Analytics Wednesday. It predicts people working from home long term could increase by up to 300% from pre-pandemic levels. That shift “would have major implications for transport and other sectors, with billions of commuting journeys eliminated every year,” said SA. It canvassed 9,000 people online in the U.S., Germany and U.K., March-May, and classified employees into: (1) “City escapees” are 24% of employees and want to work from home forever; (2) “Family jugglers” are 30%, “less keen” on telework; (3) “Struggling commuters,” 37%, in lower-income brackets and unlikely to work from home; (4) “Teleworking lifers,” 9%. “Many employers are reviewing their WFH policies but the research makes it clear that a significant proportion of employees, particularly those previously based in offices, would be happy to continue working from home permanently,” said SA.

COVID-19 uncertainties caused a “sharp decline” in global flat-panel TV shipments in Q1, reported ABI Research Wednesday. It forecasts 222 million unit shipments in 2020, down 3% from 2019. Stay-at-home orders and the pandemic's “economic upheaval” are bringing lower consumer spending on more discretionary consumer tech gear, it said. Conditions are likely to speed a decline in TV prices, said analyst Khin Sandi Lynn. Video streaming services’ popularity during lockdown caused a 4 million unit bump in streaming media adapter shipments year on year, said the analyst. Streaming media device and service growth is expected to continue beyond the pandemic. ABI expects the global flat-panel TV market to rebound in 2021, growing at a 4.3 compound annual growth rate to 275 million units in 2025.

Best Buy’s announcement Tuesday of a 2.5% sales increase for Q2 through Saturday (see 2007210062) showed the retailer’s “agility and tenacity” during a “difficult environment,” Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Wednesday. Shares reached a 52-week high Wednesday, closing 7.8% higher at $97.36. Best Buy likely benefited from the temporary or permanent shuttering of smaller brick-and-mortar competitors during the pandemic, but stimulus benefits for those receiving unemployment will soon end, “and a recession is likely to follow,” said Pachter. Best Buy said Tuesday online sales were up 255% quarter-to-date, and sales increased 15% since stores began reopening June 15. That showed customers "are gaining comfort with online purchasing while remaining loyal to the store,” it said. Temporary incremental unemployment benefits boosted Q2 sales, plus persistently strong connectivity products needed for remote work and school. Growth in computing and tablets is likely to continue as people continue to work from home and students prepare to do more schoolwork from home starting in the fall, Pachter said: “Aa looming recession and high unemployment rates could significantly impact Best Buy’s sales, as finances for Best Buy’s core consumer come under increasing pressure by October.” Best Buy's Q2 ends Aug. 1. It reports Aug. 26.

An executive walked gingerly around questions whether Snap's ad revenue is benefiting from the Facebook ad boycott. It’s "difficult to ascertain exactly what the impact of the Facebook boycott is on revenue,” said Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman on a Q2 call Tuesday. Gorman speculated some of Facebook’s lost ad revenue could be "related" to cuts in advertisers’ “overall content marketing budgets, just given the environment” of COVID-19. The Facebook hate-speech “conversation has opened the door for us” to “engage” with potential new advertisers, including with CEOs and chief marketing officers, he said. Facebook didn't comment Wednesday. The global health crisis “accelerated the shift to a more digital economy,” said Gorman. Snap’s advertisers “are exploring more ways to offer services digitally, including at-home fitness apps, online education programs, retail stores and restaurants offering online ordering and delivery services, and mobile-first banking and trading,” he said. The pandemic is encouraging business owners “to adopt digital marketing methods to engage with their customers globally,” said Gorman. Daily active users grew 17% year over year in Q2, with 238 million people using Snapchat “every day on average,” said CEO Evan Spiegel. Ad revenue grew 17% to $454 million, despite “extreme dislocations,” said Spiegel. As hard-hit industries like travel and theatrical entertainment “pull back spend,” he said, "we have transitioned to helping them plan for a future recovery led in part by our audience." Other industries like streaming and e-commerce that have thrived from “some of the COVID-related changes in consumer behavior” have been “leaning in as advertisers on our platform,” he said. “The path to this outcome was not a straight line,” said Chief Financial Officer Derek Andersen. “The operating environment has remained challenging as COVID-19 continues to impact macroeconomic conditions, and the businesses of our advertising clients." Advertisers hardest hit in the pandemic are those that “rely on in-person interaction with their customers” he said. The stock closed down 6.2% Wednesday at $23.20.

Consumer and tribal groups asked the FCC to extend the 2.5 GHz rural tribal priority window deadline. Public Knowledge, the National Congress of American Indians, Amerind Risk Management and Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association filed an emergency motion for stay, said a Wednesday release. The pandemic “impacted American Indians and Alaska Natives on Tribal lands harder than any other community in America, a situation further aggravated by the lack of reliable broadband on Tribal lands,” the groups told the FCC: “Unless the Commission extends the Tribal Window, hundreds of eligible Tribal nations will miss this unique opportunity to provide 5G service to their people.” Chairman Ajit Pai told lawmakers in June the commission is watching the window and considering extending it past the Aug. 3 end date (see 2006300084). Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel supported giving the tribes more time (see 2004290055). “My feeling from talking to the chairman's office is that it really is under consideration, so we remain hopeful,” PK Senior Vice President Harold Feld told us. One problem is that Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma is the only Capitol Hill Republican to support an extension, Feld said. “We need more Republicans to express support so this doesn't look like it's something partisan,” he said: “We had bipartisan support last year to ask the FCC to give a 180-day window rather than a 90-day window, which the FCC ultimately did, and … we need the same kind of bipartisan showing here.” The filing was posted Wednesday in docket 18-120.

Speakers offered a very different view of the citizens broadband radio service during a Connected Real Estate virtual conference Wednesday. With the CBRS auction to start Thursday (see 2007200049), there was both optimism and continuing skepticism (see 2007210052) about how much interest the band will get.

State eligible telecom carrier (ETC) designation is useful to the FCC, though it might be time to update that and other USF rules from the 1996 Telecom Act, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at NARUC’s virtual summer meeting. Later Wednesday, the state regulator association's board unanimously adopted a telecom resolution opposing Capitol Hill efforts to scrap the ETC requirement (see 2007200054). Preserving the ETC designation is a top issue for state regulators, said NARUC President Brandon Presley in a Tuesday interview. He pledged to move “swiftly” on the association’s social justice pledge.

A Thursday Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on the FCC and NTIA roles in spectrum policymaking is likely to at least partially focus on the dispute between the two agencies over Ligado’s L-band plan, lawmakers and officials said in interviews. The hearing is also likely to be a venue for lawmakers to address other related policy matters, including FCC disputes with other federal agencies on the 24 GHz auction and other frequencies, and bids to allocate proceeds from the coming auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band, lobbyists said. The panel begins at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell (see 2007160054).

The U.S. cloud gaming market could generate nearly $3 billion in annual subscription revenue, Parks Associates reported, with 30% of broadband households interested a service. Three-quarters of U.S. broadband households play videogames for at least one hour per week; gamers play for an average 22 hours. PC gaming has had the biggest gains during the pandemic. It and could generate more revenue, via service stacking and add-on sales, “if the offerings are designed and targeted correctly,” said analyst Kristen Hanich.