Preston Padden, who advises broadcasters on the incentive auction, slammed wireless carriers for their failure to step up and bid at a level that would bring the auction to an abrupt end. The FCC is in the second stage of the reverse auction as it determines the next clearing target. Padden cited comments by former President Bill Clinton Monday that Obamacare was "the craziest thing in the world." Padden suggested a revised comment. "President Clinton was wrong,” Padden emailed. “It is not Obamacare that is 'crazy,' it is carriers continuing to say they need more low band spectrum and then not bidding strongly in the 600 MHz auction. Every time we move to a new Stage, the carriers give up some of the spectrum they claim to need."

The Consumer Product Safety Commission “is moving expeditiously” to investigate the incident aboard a Southwest Airlines flight Wednesday in which a phone that its owner said was a replacement Samsung Galaxy Note7 caught fire as the flight was boarding in Louisville, CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye said in a statement. “Thankfully, reports indicate that all of the passengers were able to make it off the plane without harm,” said Kaye. After the incident, Southwest canceled flight 994 bound for Baltimore at 9:30 a.m., the airline said. CPSC staff “has already reached out to the FAA and Samsung to gather the facts about the incident,” said Kaye. “Agency staff will also reach out to the consumer who experienced a serious incident with his phone.” He repeated his call for consumers who still have the recalled Note7 to keep the phone powered down and turn it in for a replacement or refund. Sept. 15, CPSC cleared the replacement Note7s as safe, largely on the say-so of an engineer who works at CPSC’s National Product Testing and Evaluation Center in Rockville, Maryland (see 1609190059). Until Samsung is "able to retrieve the device" in question, it can't confirm the Southwest incident "involves the new Note7," a Samsung spokeswoman emailed us Thursday. Samsung is "working with the authorities" to recover the device and determine the cause of the incident, she said. "Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share." FAA representatives didn’t comment.

Federated Wireless and Airspan Networks will try to integrate Airspan's products with Federated's spectrum access system (SAS) and environmental sensing capability platform, Cinq XP, in an attempt to show interoperability between the two in the 3.5 GHz band, Federated said in a news release Wednesday. The two also plan to develop a joint solution for the band, Federated said. Federated is developing an SAS for allocation and management of the C-band spectrum, it said. Airspan will use Cinq XP to launch a Citizens Broadband Radio Service offering, Federated said.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment on whether the FCC should recognize the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) and National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) as accreditation bodies that do accreditation of test labs under agency rules outside the U.S. A2LA is recognized domestically, OET said, and now seeks to be an accreditation body for labs in China, India, Philippines and Thailand for testing equipment for authorization under the commission’s Declaration of Conformity and certification programs of commission rules. OET sought comment on A2LA’s “qualifications and capabilities.” Comments are due Oct. 26, replies Nov. 2, said a public notice in docket 16-313. OET also sought comment on NVLAP's request to expand its accreditation to accredit labs in China, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand and Ukraine. The comments dates are the same, said a PN.

Semiconductor supplier Semtech and Comcast will jointly work on a trial deployment of a Comcast low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) based on Semtech wireless RF technology. In a news release Wednesday, Semtech said the LPWAN trial deployment should start in Q4, focused on enterprise, government and consumer IoT applications. Semtech said that after the trials the network could expand to as many as 30 markets within 30 months. To help with the buildout, Semtech said, it granted Comcast a warrant to buy 1.09 million shares, with vesting coming in phases based on reaching particular milestones regarding coverage targets.

Shure filed a letter at the FCC further explaining its December petition asking the agency to clarify that antenna connector limitations don't apply to unlicensed wireless mics and to make other changes to rules for unlicensed use of the TV bands after the incentive auction (see 1609260061). “We explained in that petition that imposing limits on standard antenna jacks on wireless microphones provides no human safety benefits or meaningful spectral efficiency gains, the rationale behind the Part 15 antenna connector limitation,” Shure said in the filing in docket 14-165. “Shure filed a detailed supplement in support of its position that the Section 15.203 prohibition on standard antenna jacks and connectors would be problematic to implement given the inherent design requirements of wireless microphones, in which standard antenna connectors perform important circuit design and product application functions.”

Google wants to show autonomous vehicles are for real and has now logged more than 2 million miles on public roads, said Dmitri Dolgov, head of the self-driving technology program, Wednesday in a blog post. “If you consider the hours we’ve spent on the road, our cars now have the equivalent of 300 years of human driving experience.” Google recognized it had to tackle complex driving environments, Dolgov said. “We now spend the vast majority of our time on complex city streets, rather than simpler environments like highways,” he said. “It takes much more time to accumulate miles if you’re focused on suburban roads.” It took the company six years to hit 1 million miles, only 16 months to log the second million, he said. “With each mile we drive, our test drivers provide feedback on the car’s movements  -- things like how quickly we accelerate and brake, the distance we keep from other cars and pedestrians, or the speed and angle we turn,” he said. “With each piece of feedback, our engineers tweak our software and calibrate our driving behavior, making our self-driving car feel more natural on the road.”

Representatives of Microsoft and Broadcom expressed concerns about the certification of license assisted access (LAA) devices, in a meeting with staff from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. The representatives “explained the relationship” between the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the 3rd Generation Partnership Project standardization process “and how decisions made by ETSI will likely add additional coexistence requirements for LAA equipment placed on the European market,” said a filing in docket 15-105. The companies also discussed the Wi-Fi Alliance’s LTE-unlicensed coexistence test plan “and the importance of proper implementation of the test plan,” the filing said. “They sought clarification on OET’s interpretation of LAA vs other forms of Unlicensed LTE.” OET Chief Julius Knapp was among attendees. OET recently certified the first LAA device for use in the U.S. (see 1609260074).

The FCC Public Safety Bureau reminded communications officials in each state, district and territory they must update their administrative procedures for spectrum in the 700 MHz narrowband public safety band designated for interoperability communications. The bureau also notified the officials “they may elect to administer railroad police use of the VHF (150-174 MHz, and 220-222 MHz), and UHF (450-470 MHz) nationwide interoperability channels.” The FCC approved an order in August making railroad police eligible to use various interoperability channels to communicate with public safety officers already using the frequencies (see 1608230036).

The FCC spent just more than $100 million on spectrum auctions in FY 2015, said a report released by the agency Tuesday. The biggest expense, $56 million, was “other contractual services,” followed by personnel costs at $27 million. FromFY 1994-2014, the FCC said it spent $1.42 billion on auction, bringing in an average $4.3 billion per year in cash receipts including receipts from FY 2015.