Even if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decides NTCH has standing to challenge a pair of FCC orders related to the H-block auction -- which it doesn't -- those auction procedures were reasonable, backed by the record and accounted for statutory directives concerning auction proceeds use, DOJ said Tuesday in a docket 18-1241 appellee brief (in Pacer). NTCH sued after the agency upheld a Wireless Bureau waiver request it was appealing (see 1808160065). DOJ said the FCC had sought comment on Dish Network's waiver request months before start of auction bidding, so bidders were capable of considering it when deciding whether and how much to bid for H-block licenses. And it said Dish's waiver was conditioned on protecting H-block licensees from interference, so no H-block bidder was at a competitive disadvantage in the auction. NTCH outside counsel didn't comment Thursday.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s FAA UAS Symposium 2019, postponed from February because of the partial federal shutdown, will take place June 3-5. The conference, at the Baltimore Convention Center, is widely seen as a key public forum on drones. The agenda is being finalized.

A GSM Association study found that 80 percent of women in low- and middle-income countries own mobile phones, but a gender gap still exists. Women remain 10 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone in low- and middle-income countries and 23 percent less likely to use mobile internet, GSMA found. The gender gap is widest in South Asia, where women are 28 percent less likely than men to own a wireless device and 58 percent less likely to use mobile internet. “We are seeing significantly increased mobile access for women, however in an increasingly connected world, women are still being left behind,” said Mats Granryd, director general, GSMA. “While mobile connectivity is spreading quickly, it is not spreading equally.”

New York City warned in a Tuesday filing that opening the 6 GHz band to unlicensed use would cost the city money and any changes would take time to complete. “The City expends considerable financial and human resources to ensure that its public safety mission critical radio communications systems are reliable under all circumstances,” it said in docket 18-295, responding to the 6 GHz NPRM. The proposals “if enacted as written, will force the City to re-design many of its microwave backhaul links in order to ensure that the City’s mission critical land mobile radio systems continue to perform to public safety reliability standards under all conditions.” The city is concerned that in cases where fixed service (FS) microwave receivers are located in or on high buildings “within dense urban areas, a transmitting unlicensed device may interfere with the weak signal present at FS microwave receivers supporting public safety or critical infrastructure land mobile radio operations,” the filing said. The city is also concerned about restrictions on new or expanded FS microwave links for public safety and other operations, it said.

Boeing Chief Technology Officer Greg Hyslop met with top staff from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology on spectrum for unmanned aerial vehicles and the future of wireless, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295. Hyslop urged the FCC to launch rulemaking proceedings on the adoption of technical and operational rules on the 5030-5091 MHz band for UAVs and an exception in Part 18 of the rules “for the certification of RF-emitting vehicle components consistent with the same exception that has long existed in Section 15.103,” Boeing said. Hyslop and others from Boeing “highlighted the need for additional spectrum available for unlicensed use inside large aircraft and to support wireless systems used in industrial settings for such purposes as automation, worker safety, operational coordination, shipping and receiving, and security, in addition to ... laptops and tablets,” the filing said. “The increases in efficiency made possible through these improvements in communications and control has dramatically increased the productivity of American factories and is driving still greater adoption of networked manufacturing using unlicensed frequencies.” In comments submitted Friday, Boeing also urged the opening of the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use. “There is a substantial need for additional spectrum available for unlicensed use, particularly in frequency bands below 24 GHz,” the company said.

The cost to Rural Wireless Association members of replacing network equipment from Huawei and ZTE could run as high as $1 billion, RWA General Counsel Carri Bennet said in a call with the Capitol Forum, posted Wednesday. RWA members used equipment in good faith from the Chinese equipment makers because they were able to get it at a lower cost than from other vendors and it has proven to work well, Bennet said. In December, reports surfaced that President Donald Trump would sign an executive order barring on national security grounds U.S. companies from using Huawei and ZTE telecom equipment (see 1902060056). “We've seen speculation” that the ban will be on “Huawei, but we're assuming ZTE as well. … We don't know if that's a going forward ban for 5G technology or if it's going to impact the 3G and 4G technology that's already been deployed,” Bennet said. RWA members are concerned about costs for ripping out and replacing the equipment, she said. “They would need funding,” she said. “We've looked at this from a constitutional standpoint of whether it's a ‘takings’ under the Constitution and whether the government would pay for the replacement for other network gear.”

Qualcomm announced a second-generation 5G New Radio modem, a 7-nanometer single-chip integrated 5G to 2G multimode device. The Snapdragon X55 supports 5G NR mmWave and sub-6 GHz spectrum bands with up to 7 Gbps download speeds and 3 Gbps upload speeds over 5G, along with Category 22 LTE with up to 2.5 Gbps LTE download speeds, it said. The modem is designed for global 5G rollouts with support for all major frequency bands, said the company. Currently sampling to customers, the Snapdragon X55 is expected to be in commercial devices late this year.

The top smartwatch vendors will see their collective 58 percent market share in 2018 shrink to 47 percent by 2023, Juniper Research reported Tuesday, with Garmin, Huami and Huawei poised to gain ground. Apple is expected to continue to lead the segment in shipments over the next four years, but Huawei will grow faster, at a 20 percent compound annual growth rate. Increased focus on healthcare integration will lead to overall shipment growth over the forecast period, with Apple and Withings among the leaders in the category, followed by Fitbit and Garmin. Smaller players will grow via niche market targeting, use cases or price points, while others deliver premium devices combining fitness, outdoor activity and health features, it said. China shipped 24 million smartwatches last year vs. 19.5 million by North America companies, and it’s expected to continue to widen the gap with lower priced devices. Adoption of hybrid smartwatches, which comprised 22 percent of last year's smartwatch shipments, will be slower than expected as smaller players focus on digital offering apps, connectivity and sensors.

The Rural Wireless Association said Monday new evidence filed at the FCC by the Vermont Department of Public Service backs up RWA’s arguments (see 1812270052) that the FCC should investigate the 4G LTE coverage claims of T-Mobile. “RWA’s members previously submitted evidence to the FCC illustrating how T-Mobile vastly overstated its coverage in parts of rural America,” RWA said. The study by Vermont regulators “confirms these findings, noting that: ‘many of the areas purportedly served [in Vermont] in fact very likely lacked service.’” T-Mobile didn't comment.

VTDigger asked to reinstate its appeal of its Freedom of Information Act case against FirstNet after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case over a missed briefing deadline (see 1902050028). Opposing counsel for the government doesn’t oppose reinstating the appeal, said the local news organization’s motion (in Pacer). In an accompanying brief (in Pacer) filed over the weekend, the appellant asked the 2nd Circuit to reverse and remand rulings by the U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont, which found FirstNet is exempt from FOIA requests, the Commerce Department and NTIA were right to refuse to search for responsive records, and VTDigger lacked standing to claim the government violated Section 208 of the 2002 E-Government Act by failing to conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment for the FirstNet state plan portal accessed by state officials. Agencies generally may not refuse to process FOIA requests, VTDigger said. The government cited an exemption for FirstNet in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, but VTDigger said that covered Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking requirements but not specifically FOIA, even though it falls under APA. Also, DOC and NTIA didn’t satisfy their burden to prove searching for records would be futile, the news organization said. The agencies’ decisions not to search “were additionally unreasonable” because they referred requests to FirstNet while believing it wasn’t subject to FOIA, it said. “They refused to search for records with full knowledge that, under their interpretation of the law, the only records that Appellants could possibly obtain through FOIA would be in their offices.” VTDigger properly challenged FirstNet for not doing a privacy impact assessment, it said. “Appellants do not need to have their information collected to have standing to bring this case.”