BlackBerry to quit Pakistan; HTC announces Preview Program for product testing

More wireless news from across the Web:

> The NSA appears to have quit collecting Americans' calling data. Reuters article

> BlackBerry said it will discontinue operations in Pakistan following that government's request for inside access to the company's services. Post

> Officials in Douglas County, Neb., selected Motorola Solutions' PremierOne CAD platform to handle the area's roughly 600,000 calls to 911 each year. Release

> HTC announced a new Preview Program that will allow some customers to test out the company's products before they are commercially released. Droid Life article

> A court in Washington, D.C., will hear arguments related to the FCC's net neutrality rules starting this Friday. IBT article

> Research firm iGR predicted that U.S. carriers will spend a combined $56 billion to build out 5G networks, from 2017 to 2025. Release

> Watchmaker Swatch and Visa announced a new mobile payments service for the Swatch Bellamy watch. VentureBeat article

> Ericsson and European operator Cosmote said they commercially tested an LTE network delivering 500 Mbps speeds. Release

> AT&T's Ralph de la Vega will be among the speakers at next year's Mobile World Congress trade show. Release

> Andrew Viterbi, the co-founder of Qualcomm, is listing his California estate for $60 million. WSJ article

> Tech giants including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg announced the new Breaththrough Energy Coalition for clean energy. Verge article

Telecom News

> Frontier is taking advantage of the Christmas shopping season by offering customers a credit of up to $10 on the first month for a purchase of select Frontier Secure products. Article

> Birch Communications has made itself a more competitive threat to AT&T and Comcast Business by adding 80,000 buildings across its 22-state footprint, deepening its on-net building fiber reach to over 400,000 fiber-fed buildings. Article

Wireless Tech News

> Japan's NTT DoCoMo said it has successfully conducted 5G trials in actual-use environments with no less than five big-name vendors: Nokia Networks, Samsung, Ericsson, Huawei and Fujitsu. Article

> "LTE-A Pro" appears to be the name the 3GPP will use for so-called 4.5G technology. Industry Voices

European Wireless News

> Polkomtel is gearing up to become the first mobile operator in Poland to offer Wi-Fi calling after it teamed up with Nokia Networks to trial the vendor's voice-over-Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) technology. Article

> Ericsson will seek further partnerships like the one it recently struck with Cisco in order to achieve its goal of becoming a leader in non-core markets and offset a likely slowdown in telecoms infrastructure sales, chief strategy officer Rima Qureshi revealed. Article

Cable News

> Amazon is close to bundling other streaming services into its Prime Instant Video subscription product, Bloomberg reported. Article

> An impasse between Comcast and a regional sports network (RSN) carrying the Yankees boils down to the intricacies of so-called "most-favored nation" contract language being included in a renewal deal, according to the Wall Street Journal. Article

And finally… Amazon showed off its new drone. Article