Wireless broadband continues to grow at rapid rate, with global mobile data traffic up 81 percent in 2013, Cisco said in a report released Wednesday. “Last year’s mobile data traffic was nearly 18 times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000,” said the technology equipment maker (http://bit.ly/1fuNCxV). “One exabyte of traffic traversed the global Internet in 2000, and in 2013 mobile networks carried nearly 18 exabytes of traffic.” But Cisco confirmed that Wi-Fi offloading is becoming a major factor worldwide, with 45 percent of total mobile data traffic offloaded onto a wireline network last year. The company said smartphone use also continued to grow at a rapid rate. “Smartphones represented only 27 percent of total global handsets in use in 2013, but represented 95 percent of total global handset traffic,” the report said. “In 2013, the typical smartphone generated 48 times more mobile data traffic (529 MB per month) than the typical basic-feature cell phone (which generated only 11 MB per month of mobile data traffic).” There were 22 million wearable wireless devices in use last year, generating 1.7 petabytes of monthly traffic, Cisco said. Its reports have often been cited by policymakers as evidence of a looming spectrum crunch. The Cisco report “underscores the need for rapid deployment of infrastructure,” said PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein, a former FCC commissioner, in an interview. “It’s more than a spectrum crunch, it’s a wireless data crunch. ... We need more spectrum, we need more antennas operating at more different frequencies. It’s very difficult to keep pace with the speed of the growth of consumer demand for broadband data. In the immediate term we are seeing the carriers densify their networks to accommodate the demand.” The FCC “is right on target in looking how we can speed broadband deployment,” he said (CD Feb 5 p3). “This data shows the FCC is right on track on conducting such a comprehensive review of how we can speed the siting of wireless infrastructure.” Jot Carpenter, CTIA vice president-government affairs, welcomed the report. “We agree with Cisco that demand for wireless broadband continues to grow at a significant rate, highlighting the need for additional spectrum,” Carpenter said. “Even with successful AWS-3 and broadcast incentive auctions, more will have to be done to enable America’s wireless industry to continue leading the world.” Wells Fargo said in a research note the Cisco numbers are positive for towers. “We reiterate our OVERWEIGHT rating on the tower sector,” Wells Fargo said. “In our view, the ... findings offer tangible evidence around the continued strong demand for wireless data usage. We believe carriers will need to continue to optimize their respective networks to handle the additional demands of mobile data usage.”

The Wi-Fi Alliance filed in support of NCTA arguments that the FCC should override objections from Globalstar and allow the use of the 5.1 GHz U-NII-1 band for Wi-Fi (CD Jan 24 p13). “As the NCTA Ex Parte correctly pointed out -- and as the Commission recognized in initiating its proceeding -- demand for Wi-Fi connectivity is rapidly expanding,” the alliance said (http://bit.ly/1n8Onj4). “The U-NII-1 band is ideal for swiftly making additional channels available to meet the skyrocketing demand, including outdoor use, for Wi-Fi technologies, particularly because the band is part of a larger contiguous block of unlicensed spectrum capable of supporting the new generation IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and also for the next generation High Efficiency WLAN ... technology presently under study by IEEE 802.11."

The FCC granted Los Angeles TV stations KLCS and KJLA special temporary authority (STA) for a channel-sharing pilot project prior to the TV incentive auction. The stations, working with CTIA, sought the STA last week (CD Jan 29 p4). FCC commissioners praised CTIA and the stations during last week’s FCC meeting for proposing the project. “It is a big deal,” said Chairman Tom Wheeler. KJLA is a commercial station offering bilingual programming through the LATV network, and KLCS is a PBS station. The 2012 Spectrum Act allows sharing “as one possible means of participation in the incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum,” the Media Bureau said in the order (http://fcc.us/1doSzFH). It said the project is in the public interest because it “may help to demonstrate the feasibility of successful channel sharing between two independently owned stations. It also may serve as a model for other stations contemplating participation in the incentive auction, using the channel sharing option, and provide information about the technical implementation of channel sharing agreements. We do not anticipate enforcement issues that would impede the accomplishment of the experiment."

Several industry heavyweights signed onto the White House’s best practices for recruiting and hiring the long-term unemployed, said a fact sheet the administration released Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1k3M8QR). Companies include Apple, AT&T, CBS, Comcast NBCUniversal, Dell, Disney, eBay, Frontier Communications, Motorola Solutions, Qualcomm, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, 21st Century Fox and LinkedIn. The best practices amount to a commitment to ensuring job advertisements and reviewing procedures don’t discriminate against the unemployed. Recruiting practices should cast a wide net and be reviewed to make that happen, the best practices said. It also called for best practices to be shared. Time Warner Cable has updated its equal employment opportunity statement “to make it clear that job applicants will not be disadvantaged based on their current employment status,” said CEO Rob Marcus in a statement. “Time Warner Cable is pleased to reaffirm our long-held practice of providing equal employment opportunities to the long-term unemployed."

Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son and CEO Dan Hesse met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday about Sprint’s possible buy of T-Mobile but did not hear much reason for optimism the deal would be easily approved from Wheeler, FCC officials said. Wheeler pledged to keep an open mind but also said he remained skeptical, consistent with signals emanating from the Justice Department. Last week, Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer, head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in a speech in New York that T-Mobile has “spearheaded increased competition in wireless services” in the U.S. (CD Jan 31 p14). The Department of Defense has also stressed the importance of maintaining four national competitors in the market. A Sprint spokesman declined to comment. Son is also the CEO of Softbank, which wrapped up a $21.6 billion acquisition of a majority of Sprint last summer.

The FCC’s H-block auction continued Monday, with 174 licenses having provisionally winning bids (PWBs) after round 36 and PWBs totaling $1.08 billion. That amount is still well below Dish Network’s December commitment to bid $1.564 billion in the auction. The highest bid is for the license for New York City and surrounding areas at $217 million, which is below the minimum required bid of $238.6 million in the next bidding round. “The H-Block auction has seen more selective, but slowing, activity over the last several rounds,” said New Street Research in a Monday research report. “Aggregate auction prices are now at $0.33/MHz-POP, 35 percent below DISH’s reserve bid of $0.50/MHz-POP; however, select urban markets are showing accelerating price increases and bids that are above prices paid in Auction 66” the AWS-1 auction. New Street said all signs are still that Dish will buy spectrum covering the entire U.S. when the auction concludes. “In recent rounds, certain urban markets, such as Las Vegas and Minneapolis, have seen 4-5x bids per round as the rest of the licenses,” the firm said. “It is possible that the competition is attempting to drive up prices in major markets, before switching bids to the markets they really want in later rounds; however, bid increases are slowing on an aggregate basis, and are still well below the reserve bid. As such, it appears that DISH’s bid is best positioned to win a national footprint with a bid that is likely at or close to the reserve bid.”

President Barack Obama reiterated his support for net neutrality Friday. “It’s something that I've cared deeply about ever since I ran for office,” Obama said during a Google Plus Hangout. “My campaign was empowered by a free and open Internet and the ability for citizens all across this country to engage and create and find new ways and new tools to mobilize themselves. A lot of that couldn’t be done if there were a lot of commercial barriers and roadblocks. I've been a strong supporter of net neutrality.” As is FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Obama added. He was responding to a question about the mid-January U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling that struck down the FCC’s net neutrality rules. But the FCC and Wheeler are “looking at all the options at their disposal,” potential appeals and potential rulemaking, “in order to continue to vindicate the notion of a free and open Internet.” Obama can’t “meddle in the decisionmaking” of the FCC now that his FCC nominees are in place, he added. The Obama administration will continue to support net neutrality principles despite a “lot of technical issues” being worked through, he said. The “good news” in the court ruling is that the court affirmed the FCC can “regulate this space,” he said. He mentioned the potential for “other tools that would stand up to court scrutiny.”

The FCC’s meeting room was unusually cold Thursday, cold enough that Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said from the podium she “literally” could not feel her own feet. “It’s cold in here,” said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “That’s not a metaphor for anything. But it is cold in here."

The FCC is working on a new set of principles to help guide companies as the agency prepares to regulate net neutrality disputes on a case-by-case basis, Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed in a Q-and-A session with reporters after Thursday’s commission meeting (see related stories in this issue). The FCC will “preserve and protect the open Internet,” Wheeler said. In a “relatively short time,” the agency will be “stepping out to put some more flesh around those basic principles,” he said. In response to a question about how the FCC would address due process concerns by providing potential guidance to ISPs, he said: “We will have some specifics coming out on this shortly” that will address those issues. Wheeler said again (CD Jan 29 p1) that he planned to accept the “invitation” offered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to regulate Internet disputes. He declined to elaborate on whether the commission would rely on Section 706 of the Communications Act, or proceed with Title II reclassification that would let it impose common carrier obligations. The agency will use “all of the tools in the toolbox,” and will “be forthcoming with our plan and rationale therefore shortly,” Wheeler said. The plan would be “addressing the construct for how we go forward, and that will use all of the vehicles at the agency,” Wheeler said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said at a Minority Media and Telecom Council event earlier this month (CD Jan 17 p5) that she would support Wheeler as he lays out the next steps on a “high-level” set of principles to provide guidance to companies and consumers. Free Press Thursday delivered to the FCC a petition with more than 1 million signatures urging the agency to restore net neutrality (http://bit.ly/1eAD52r). “To preserve the open Internet, the FCC must reclassify the transmission component of broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service,” the petition said. “One of the reasons that Internet has to stay open is that it enables people to organize and express themselves to the government” and “therefore enables the government to do a better job,” Wheeler said in response to a question about that petition. “If there are a million people, that’s boffo! We want to hear from those million people.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology asked for supplemental comment on a methodology for predicting potential interference between broadcast TV and licensed wireless services in the incentive auction. In response to the NPRM and the 600 MHz band plan supplemental public notice, some commenters raised concerns about co-channel and adjacent-channel interference between TV and wireless services in nearby markets as a result of accommodating market variation, OET said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ffr6KP). “Some commenters proposed separation distances between the two services. The most common approach commenters propose is to use a pre-defined separation distance between TV and mobile service areas. Commenters proposed distances that varied significantly -- ranging from 100 kilometers to 500 kilometers -- and generally provided limited technical analysis in support of these proposals.” Comments are due Feb. 28. Thursday’s FCC meeting will hear an update on the incentive auction. (See separate report in this issue.)