Sprint can survive even if it doesn’t work out a transaction with T-Mobile, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in a Monday note to investors. Fritzsche said the 2.5 GHz spectrum owned by Sprint (S) is key. “In many ways, 2.5 GHz should be considered the low band spectrum in a 5G world,” she said. “The depth of S’s spectrum position, as well as the simplicity of the spectrum portfolio, should give it unique advantage in terms of capital efficiency vs. the three other national competitors,” she said. “While we acknowledge there would be significant (massive?!) synergies in a S/[T-Mobile] merger, we do believe S has a long runway even if on a go-alone strategy. Because of its spectrum advantage and technology advancements, we believe even in the absence of a merger with another player, S has more than enough in terms of spectrum and network capabilities to stand on its own two feet.”

The FCC provided an updated 2016 listing of all handsets deployed by U.S. carriers, the frequencies they use and whether they're hearing-aid compatible (HAC). It offered fact sheets and much data. For example, it cited more than 100 versions of handsets deployed on the AT&T network. Another fact sheet offered handset totals sorted by service provider and air interface, plus the numbers for each that aren't HAC. Many handsets still can’t be used by people with hearing aids. The FCC said Puerto Rico Telephone has 227 models in use for just the GSM interface and 128 aren't HAC. All handsets offered by the big four carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon -- are HAC, said a fact sheet.

An Android 7.1.1 update for the ZTE Axon 7 smartphone allows T-Mobile users to send and receive calls and text messages over Wi-Fi, said the company in a blog post Thursday. Other updates include an improved virtual reality experience and Google security patches, it said.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) wireless standards body agreed to accelerate work on standards for 5G, allowing carriers to use 5G for mobile services as early as 2018, said Andre Fuetsch, AT&T chief technology officer, in a blog post. The new schedule is a year earlier than expected and 47 global operators and vendors already have signed off on the new 3GPP proposal, Fuetsch said Tuesday. Launch in 2018 “won’t be a moment too soon,” he wrote. About 137 petabytes of data traffic cross AT&T’s network on an average business day, up 250,000 percent since 2007, he said. “Video now makes up more than half of our mobile data traffic,” Fuetsch said. “Video traffic grew over 75 percent and smartphones drove almost 75 percent of our data traffic in the last year alone. 5G will be a critical part of staying ahead of that demand. While there are many elements to this new technology, the big news here is that you can expect to see the first standards-based mobile 5G services in 2 years or less.”

LTE “continued its impressive momentum in North America, Latin America and throughout the world” in Q4, based on data from Ovum, 5G Americas said in a news release. Worldwide LTE connections hit 1.9 billion at the end of last year and surpassed 2 billion connections by February of 2017, 5G Americas said Monday. The North America region had nearly 300 million LTE subscriptions by the end of 2016 “with some of the highest penetration rates, most extensive coverage and largest market share for LTE in the world,” the group said. Ovum projects 3 billion LTE connections in 2018 and 4 billion in 2020, and 5G Americas projects 5 billion in 2022, the news release said. “At the recent Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, 5G continued to show incredible progress and great promise in all areas,” said Chris Pearson, president of 5G Americas. “Yet, at the same time, the evolution of LTE toward LTE-Advanced Pro is being welcomed by mobile wireless customers throughout the world as evidenced by the tremendous growth of LTE customers.”

With the TV incentive auction nearly a wrap, the outlook is very positive for the TV white spaces, the WhiteSpace Alliance said Wednesday. The auction is in its final stage, expected to be complete by the end of the month. “The completion of the incentive auction will remove regulatory uncertainty and free up more than 80 MHz of spectrum for license-exempt wireless Internet access,” said Apurva Mody, chairman of the alliance, in a news release. “TV white space technology can now enable broadband services to be delivered cost-efficiently across the United States, especially in rural and underserved users. We have seen innovative applications in medical, military and home markets from use of unlicensed spectrum in 2.5 GHz ISM bands. This newly available spectrum will support additional digital infrastructure development across the United States, and help foster the Industrial Internet of Things.”

Consumers can’t wait for the launch of 5G, but further enhancement to 4G LTE will have to come first, said Qualcomm Senior Vice President Dean Brenner at a Politico Live event Tuesday. “It’s crucial that today, and I mean literally today, we deliver tremendous enhancements to 4G and accelerate the timing of 5G, and we’re doing precisely that,” he said. Brenner said 5G will have to use low-, mid- and high-band spectrum, across licensed, unlicensed and shared bands. “In other words, by using every sliver of spectrum, 5G will provide the type of wireless connectivity that we can only dream about today,” he said. Fifth-generation service also will mean what Qualcomm calls “the massive internet of things,” he said. The IoT already is happening over 4G, but massive IoT, with billions of connected devices, will require 5G, he said. Some use cases -- from autonomous cars to remote brain surgery to very-high-performance robotics -- will require more than 4G, Brenner said. “No one would do these things with 4G, but the goal is to enable them with 5G from the ground up,” he said. AT&T is “still trying to understand the capabilities of the bands” that will make up 5G service through ongoing tests, said Joan Marsh, AT&T senior vice president-regulatory. “Think about very, very wide bands,” she said. “As opposed to the smaller bands that we deal with today, think about hundreds of gigahertz put together.” The use of wide bands will drive 5G “in terms of speed, in terms of low latency, in terms of different applications,” she said. LTE will remain important, Marsh said. “LTE has a long runway, so don’t think of 5G as a replacement for 4G because there’s a lot of things that LTE is capable of doing,” she said. AT&T is densifying its network to pave the way for 5G, Marsh said. “Think about ubiquitous deployment of small cells, distributed antenna systems, picocells, other small cells in the local area, that’s really going to densify the network,” she said. LTE is very fast and “does broadband very well, but it’s harder to make it do other things,” said Steve Crowley, a consulting engineer. Brenner is right, some applications would be difficult on LTE, Crowley said. “Basically, there’s more delay,” he said. “You have more latency in LTE that’s built into the physical layer if you will, the actual radio part, that’s locked in.” LTE is evolving, but “you’re still locked into the framework,” he said. “In the meantime, technology improves.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau is seeking comment on a December petition by Wilson Electronics asking the agency to start a proceeding on eliminating the personal-use restriction on consumer cell-signal boosters, replacing it with a multi-provider registration requirement for wideband consumer signal boosters (see 1612200061). The bureau sought comment on the petition in general. “We also seek comment on whether this change to the rules would increase the risk of harmful interference to wireless networks; whether licensees (the wireless carriers) would retain sufficient control of their licensed spectrum under the proposal; and how the proposal would affect consumers, businesses, and public safety and other entities seeking to use consumer signal boosters,” said a Friday public notice. “We seek comment regarding the benefits and costs of removing the personal use restriction on only wideband consumer signal boosters, on only provider-specific consumer signal boosters, or on both.” The FCC approved rules for cell boosters, aimed at extending the reach of carrier networks, in February 2013 (see 1302210066). The order included the personal-use restriction. T-Mobile said last year the FCC added the personal-use restriction, which wasn't in an industry proposal for rules, “without explanation” before the vote. Comments are due March 23, replies April 3 in docket 10-4.

TCL launched the BlackBerry KEYone smartphone at Mobile World Congress, after a licensing agreement last fall with BlackBerry for the company's software and service suite. It has a 5.5-inch display, physical keyboard and 3,505 mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge technology that can bring the phone to a 50 percent charge within 36 minutes, said TCL in an announcement. The phone is targeted to business, government and corporate users. BlackBerry CEO John Chen said last fall on an earnings call that the company's decision to exit handset development and manufacturing in favor of a royalty-bearing licensing model for its brand and intellectual property was the best way to drive profitability in the device business (see 1609280006).

There were about 556 million registered mobile money accounts in 92 countries at the end of 2016, GSM reported Tuesday. That included 174 million accounts active over the previous days, said a news release. Some 35 mobile money services have more than 1 million active accounts, and there are more than 4.3 million mobile money agent outlets, GSMA said. “The average cost of sending international remittances using mobile money is less than half the cost of doing so via a global money transfer operator.”