Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System don't believe the use of automated or mechanical parsing to compose 90-character messages is appropriate, they said about proposed FCC rule changes for wireless emergency alerts to mobile phones, during a meeting with officials from the FCC Public Safety Bureau, recounted a filing. “In no case should the IPAWS system be responsible for this function,” they said. “FEMA believes that parsing a 90 character message from a 360 character message should be done by the alert originator.” The IPAWS officials also said devices should continue the practice of identifying the message “by whatever means dictated by the carrier” to eliminate duplicate messages. Carriers' approach on 90-character versus 360-character messages depends on future rules, IPAWS said. “Carriers will most likely push 90 character messages to legacy networks and 360 character messages to 4G LTE networks.” The FCC proposed at its November meeting to allow longer WEA messages, inclusion of hyperlinks and narrower distribution of alerts (see 1511190053). FEMA's filing was posted Friday in docket 15-94.

AT&T emphasized the importance of 700 MHz spectrum to its deployment of LTE, in a letter to the FCC answering questions on its proposed buy of two lower 700 MHz B-block licenses in South Carolina from West Carolina (see 1603020060). “AT&T’s LTE deployment strategy centers around the Lower 700 MHz band, and AT&T has made deployment of LTE in 700 MHz spectrum a key priority,” the carrier said. “Where AT&T holds Lower 700 MHz B or C Block spectrum, AT&T will launch LTE service initially using that spectrum.” The company typically launches LTE in a 5x5 MHz configuration where a single 12 MHz block of lower 700 MHz B or C block spectrum is available and in a 10x10 MHz configuration in areas where both the lower 700 MHz B and C blocks are available, the carrier said. AT&T said it now has a 5x5 MHz network in the two cellular market areas covered, Anderson and Laurens, and is deploying a 10x10 network using leased spectrum. “Acquisition of these licenses from West Carolina will enable AT&T to maintain this 10 x 10 MHz LTE deployment in the Lower 700 MHz spectrum in these CMAs on a permanent basis,” AT&T said. It redacted key information on the markets.

The FCC should allocate at least part of the high-frequency spectrum to a sharing system modeled on the 3.5 GHz band, representatives of New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge told officials of the International, Public Safety and Wireless bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC is expected to take up final rules for some high-frequency bands this summer (see 1603090057). “OTI and PK strongly concur with commenters suggesting that the Commission should extend its Part 96 framework for intensive, three-tiered sharing to at least the 37 GHz band,” the officials said. “Extending the three-tier 3.5 GHz sharing framework and the Spectrum Access System governance model to the mmW [millimeter wave] bands creates a flexible sharing framework that protects band incumbents, facilitates efficient spectrum re-use, and promotes lower barriers to entry and innovation.” Use of a dynamic sharing model in at least part of the spectrum “will ensure that limited spectrum resources do not go underutilized and that there is a truly flexible and hybrid spectrum access option to accommodate both current and future technologies and use cases," said a filing posted Friday in docket 14-177.

Global shipments of wearable devices are expected to grow 38.2 percent this year to 110 million units, IDC said in a Thursday report. The research firm sees an expanding lineup of vendors combining with “fast-growing consumer awareness and demand” to push double-digit growth through 2020, when annual shipments will reach 237.1 million units, it said. “Although smartwatches like the Apple Watch or Android Wear devices capture the spotlight, they will only account for a quarter of all wearables in 2016 and will grow to about a third by 2020," IDC said. "It's time to start thinking about smarter watches -- traditional watches with some sort of fitness or sleep tracking but are unable to run apps -- built by classic watch makers. These devices have the potential of making the technology invisible while still integrating themselves within day-to-day activities.”

T-Mobile said additional video providers are now participating in its Binge On offering. Binge On, introduced in November, allows subscribers to stream video from a wide number of services without that usage counting against a customer’s monthly data bucket (see 1511120045). Some net neutrality advocates see the zero-rated offering as potentially violating FCC rules, which T-Mobile executives deny (see 1602040060). Subscribers can now also watch Baeble Music, Discovery Go, ESNE TV, FilmOn.TV, Fox Business, Google Play Movies, KlowdTV, Red Bull TV and Google's YouTube without dipping into their data allowance, T-Mobile said in a Thursday news release. Subscribers have streamed 57 million GB of video using Binge On and 70 percent of the services that subscribers watch are now part of the program, T-Mobile said. “Binge On is a runaway hit, and adding these services is just huge,” said CEO John Legere. “Now T-Mobile customers can watch all of the videos they want from these platforms without even touching their high-speed data.”

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance withdrew a Feb. 2 petition seeking clarification of one aspect of FCC revised hearing aid compatibility rules. A modification adopted by the FCC “arguably would require all operators of 800 MHz and 900 MHz Specialized Mobile Radio digital systems to offer HAC-compliant mobile devices," EWA said in the petition. “This would expand the requirement to include, seemingly inadvertently, a category of licensees whose systems were deliberately exempted under the previous rule.” These SMR systems aren't used by the public, EWA said. It withdrew the petition voluntarily and without comment in a filing in docket 07-250. EWA confirmed that the FCC had addressed its concerns about the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act. "The staff responsible for the FCC rules that implement the HAC legislation confirmed that the SMR systems described in the EWA petition do not fall within those covered by that legislation," EWA President Mark Crosby said.

The NTIA-driven multistakeholder process crafting a privacy, transparency and accountability best practices guide for commercial and private drone operators scheduled its next meeting April 8, 1-5 p.m., at the American Institute of Architects boardroom, said a Federal Register notice published Thursday. Participants, who have been working on this issue since last summer, are discussing a couple of draft guides -- a combined one developed by the Center for Democracy and Technology and Hogan Lovells, and another presented by a news media coalition represented by Holland & Knight (see 1602240048). Issues largely involve how detailed the document should be and how it might affect news companies. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Wednesday approved a broad aviation policy bill that requires NTIA to provide a report by July 31 on the ongoing multistakeholder process (see 1603150014 and 1603160028).

T-Mobile is “going big” on Major League Baseball, signing an expanded partnership with MLB, it said Wednesday. T-Mobile will be the title sponsor of Home Run Derby during All-Star Week and the T-Mobile Junior Home Run Derby, a new youth competition. T-Mobile Simple Choice customers on qualifying plans also can sign up opening week, April 3-10, to get a full, free year’s subscription to MLB.TV Premium, T-Mobile said. "For the last three years MLB has been with us every step of the way as we have re-written the rules of wireless,” said CEO John Legere in a news release. “This year we're doubling down.”

Futuresource Consulting estimates 99 million wearable devices were sold globally last year “across all categories,” up 76 percent from 2014, the firm said in a Wednesday report. Sales increased 267 percent to $24 billion, reflecting average selling price increases spurred by momentum in the connected watch category, it said. In the smartwatch segment, Apple “quickly established itself as outright market leader despite being late to market compared to some of the other major brands,” it said.

Local control has emerged as a big issue for FirstNet’s proposed network and the authority is paying attention, said Jeff Posner, senior applications architect, in a blog post. “Probably the most important lesson I have learned from work in this area is that local control means different things to different constituencies,” Posner wrote. FirstNet’s Chief Technology Officer team looked at the issue in its January requests for proposals, he said. “We cast the widest net and included as many ideas and suggestions as possible regarding local control,” he said. “Then, we grouped these suggestions logically, aligned them with other sections” of the request for proposal, “and organized them into areas of ‘Direct Control’ and ‘Indirect Control.’” FirstNet recently met with its Public Safety Advisory Committee Local Control Task Team in Boulder, Colorado, to discuss the topic, he said. PSAC Chairman Harlin McEwen said in a report to the FirstNet board Wednesday that one big recent recognition is that manual, local control of the network will “rarely, if ever, be necessary.” That is an important observation, he said: PSAC members didn’t understand that until a recent meeting on the topic with FirstNet staff. “Almost everything will be automated and dynamic,” McEwen said.