The FCC Wireless Bureau OK'ed the Enterprise Wireless Alliance to be the frequency coordinator for Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) operations in the 2360-2390 MHz band. The commission initially selected the American Hospital Association's American Society for Healthcare Engineering as the MBAN frequency coordinator, but the group backed out, leaving the FCC to designate the coordination to EWA. The commission and EWA signed a memorandum of understanding on the coordinator's responsibilities and authority, said a bureau public notice Friday.

The FCC Wireless Bureau said it will now accept geographic information system (GIS) files for partitioning and disaggregation (P&D) and leasing applications filed in its Universal Licensing System (ULS). “Allowing GIS shapefiles for P&D and leasing applications will provide greater accuracy in specifying geographic areas and will be more efficient for applicants who use the GIS data that is available in ULS for their licensed boundaries,” the bureau said in a Thursday public notice. “This new feature will give immediate feedback to applicants in the event a geographic proposal is inconsistent with an existing market boundary or does not represent a valid shape.” A GIS file format is a standard for encoding geographical information into a file. The standard is widely used by government mapping agencies.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment on an Oct. 20 letter from FirstNet detailing plans to clear incumbent systems from Band 14 (758-769/788-799 MHz), the spectrum that the authority is using to build its network (see 1510220032). As part of the letter, FirstNet asked the FCC to grant licenses or other authorizations in the band only with the condition that “no operation on Band 14 be permitted without the express consent of FirstNet after July 31, 2017.” The bureau said Thursday it had already sought comment on related issues, but “we believe that seeking expedited comment on FirstNet’s more specific request will help ensure a complete and comprehensive record, and is consistent with FirstNet’s expectation of release of a Federal Funding Opportunity for its related grant program in early 2016.” Comments are to be due 14 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

Wireless interests promoting LTE-unlicensed met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday to argue that Wi-Fi and LTE-U can peacefully coexist, said a filing Thursday in docket 15-105. “The wireless industry participants described how LTE-U will allow large and small carriers alike to provide their customers a better wireless broadband experience with faster download speeds, improved security, greater capacity, wider coverage, and seamless mobility,” the industry representatives said. “They emphasized their support of unlicensed spectrum and their strong commitment to Wi-Fi. And they discussed their ongoing collaboration with the rest of the Wi-Fi community to ensure that LTE-U coexists successfully with Wi-Fi.” The Competitive Carriers Association, Ericsson, Qualcomm, T-Mobile and Verizon were represented, the filing said.

The wireless charging industry was stifled by three competing industry organizations, a situation the AirFuel Alliance is looking to eclipse with an all-inclusive strategy encompassing all flavors of wireless charging, AirFuel Alliance President Ron Resnick told us. AirFuel, the new name announced Tuesday (see 1511030038) replaces the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and Power Matters Alliance (PMA), which merged in June (see 1506010046). The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), meanwhile, remains committed to the competing Qi standard. The AirFuel alliance envisions a “seamless, interoperable global infrastructure” that includes a public charging infrastructure for places including coffee shops and airports. For a wireless charging ecosystem to take hold, “you have to be able charge your devices in public wherever you go,” Resnick said. A working group within the alliance is focusing on public charging solutions, but Resnick conceded that venues such as airports won’t commit to wireless charging until, and if, Apple stamps its seal on a technology. "That's why they're holding back," he said. IHS released a brief analysis Wednesday, after the announcement of the AirFuel Alliance, saying it “shows their commitment to simplifying the wireless power landscape for the consumer” by “reducing the number of brand names and logos on products.” But the alliance hasn’t addressed the issue that the existing PMA and A4WP standards “are not interoperable” because they work on “completely different frequencies,” said analyst David Green. The alliance hasn’t said “how they might differentiate between these standards for existing products or any future design” that doesn’t cover both standards, said Green.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCOE) sought comment Wednesday on its draft cybersecurity practice guide for mobile device security. The draft guide notes how existing technologies can help companies improve security of sensitive data stored on employee-used mobile devices. The guide includes a “typical” IT scenario that “shows organizations how to configure a device so that it can be trusted, as well as how to remove the device from systems" if it's stolen or lost, or when an employee leaves a company, NIST said. The guide also includes instructions for installing and integrating security solutions into existing IT infrastructure. “Mobile devices extend or eliminate the notion of traditional organization boundaries, posing challenges that nearly all businesses regardless of sector or organization size” face, said NCCOE Deputy Director Nate Lesser in a news release. Comments on the draft guide are due Jan. 8, NIST said.

The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee (LMSC) plans to weigh in at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as the standards group develops specifications for devices that use licensed assisted access (LAA), a variation of LTE-unlicensed, the committee said in a filing at the FCC. The IEEE committee deals with standards for local area networks and metropolitan area networks. The committee recommends that 3GPP “adopt a number of specific 802.11-like coexistence features, and that those features be a mandatory part of the LAA standard, given how successful these features have been in promoting the growth of wireless broadband over unlicensed spectrum,” said the letter, from LMSC Chairman Paul Nikolich. The committee understands 3GPP will make its draft LAA specification available in Q4, Nikolich wrote. “At that point, IEEE 802 expects to review 3GPP’s draft LAA specification and provide any appropriate feedback, and we hope that input will be incorporated into the LAA specification” due for release in March, he said. The filing was posted in docket 15-105.

Wireless carriers are causing harmful interference to public safety radios using the 800 MHz National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee channels, APCO said Wednesday in a filing at the FCC. The interference “appears to be mainly due to commercial cellular operations overloading the front end (862-869 MHz) portion of public safety radios that was left in place following the 800 MHz rebanding proceeding,” APCO said. It said it bases its complaints on reports from the field. The problem “is expected to only grow worse as cellular carriers continue their deployments, including LTE,” APCO said. “Further, even on a going-forward basis, APCO understands that very few radios are available that might be capable of addressing the overloading issue.” The letter was written by Jeffrey Cohen, APCO chief counsel. APCO said it has spoken with various FCC officials from the Public Safety and Wireless Bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology about its concerns. The filing was posted in docket 12-40. The FCC approved a landmark order in 2004, which set in motion the still-ongoing rebanding of 800 MHz spectrum with the goal of alleviating interference to public safety radios.

U.S. Cellular representatives told Stephanie Weiner, an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, that the pending Connect America Fund Phase II funding mechanism must provide a “meaningful role for commercial mobile wireless carriers,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 10-90. U.S. Cellular said it also met with Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey. “The company expressed a conceptual willingness to participate in CAF Phase II and to extend new broadband services into high-cost rural areas that need infrastructure investment,” U.S. Cellular said.

The FCC should expand eligibility criteria for the Lifeline program to specify that any person who receives telecom equipment from a state equipment distribution program be automatically eligible for Lifeline funds, Odin Mobile General Manager Robert Felgar said he told Consumer and Governmental Affairs and Wireline bureau staff. Felgar was accompanied by Zainab Alkebsi, policy counsel to the National Association of the Deaf, said a filing by Odin posted Tuesday in docket 09-197. “We discussed how budget phones provided by eligible telecommunications carriers to Lifeline consumers would not meet the needs of individuals with disabilities, including people who are blind, deaf, hard of hearing, or those who have mobility disabilities,” Odin said. “Such phones would not provide adequate screen readers for people who are blind and would likely not have the ability to provide adequate Video Relay Services or captioned telephone services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. As a result, people with disabilities will not be able to partake fully in the Lifeline program.”