Informa Telecoms & Media picked 4G Americas to host a new event, 5G World North America, at the company’s LTE North America event in November. “It is vital that North America focuses on 5G research and development,” said Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas. He said “5G is still in its early stages in terms of examining use cases, requirements and component technologies.” The event is scheduled for the Intercontinental Hotel, Dallas, Nov. 18-19.

Global messaging market revenue is expected to decline 0.5 percent to $112.9 billion by 2019, even though messaging traffic is expected to double, Juniper Research said in a news release Tuesday. It said the anticipated drop is spurred partly by the projected increase of over-the-top messaging applications. Global OTT messaging traffic is expected to triple from last year to 100 trillion by 2019. Although OTT applications are experiencing increased growth, they're having trouble monetizing services, leaving SMS financially in full control of the market, said the industry researcher.

A Deutsche Telekom spokesman Tuesday denied a report in the New York Post that DT CEO Timotheus Hoettges has made clear he would prefer a deal with Sprint to one with Dish Network. Hoettges said it in a meeting with investors at an RBC Capital Markets road show in Toronto last week, the tabloid reported. The paper “asked us to confirm a couple of statements” from Hoettges at the conference, the spokesman said in an email. “We did not do so because they were false.” DT is the majority owner of T-Mobile USA. Industry observers said last week a DT/Dish deal likely would pass muster with U.S. regulators if it is proposed (see 1506040051). T-Mobile CEO John Legere was in Washington Tuesday for a series of meetings on Capitol Hill and at the FCC, he said on social media.

Wireless carriers have the technological capacity to curb prank calls to 911 from “nonservice-initialized” (NSI) handsets, the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) said in comments filed in FCC docket 08-51. Most carriers support an agency proposal that it drop a requirement that calls from NSI phones must go through to public safety answering points (PSAPs) (see 1504020047). Carriers could require that these phones be registered with the owner’s name and forward this information with the call to the PSAPs, NASNA said. Carriers also have the “technical means” to block just fraudulent calls, it said. These two solutions, “had they been implemented, could have resolved the fraudulent NSI call issue long ago," the group said. One NASNA member describes prank calls to PSAPs as a “plague,” the association said. “Accidental 911 calls may be lower than in the past since today’s smart phones do not have an ‘emergency call’ feature available from the lock screen like they used to, but it is no more difficult to make a fraudulent 911 call from a smart phone than from any other cellular device.”

The U.S. delegation should push for an agenda item on spectrum for unmanned aerial systems at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019, Nokia Networks said in comments posted by the FCC Tuesday. WRC-15 is to start Nov. 2 in Geneva and one of the items will be a look at whether spectrum for drones should be taken up at the following meeting (see 1505200052). The FCC WRC Advisory Committee has been unable to reach consensus on that question. The U.S. “has been investing heavily” in the sector “including for the delivery of broadband communications to underserved, rural, and remote areas and areas suffering from disasters,” Nokia said. It said the U.S. shouldn't ignore the need for more globally harmonized spectrum for broadband. “The amount of spectrum required to support mobile broadband services is expanding exponentially,” Nokia said. “Correspondingly increasing is the desirability for the existing and newly identified spectrum to be harmonized globally across frequency range, channel plans, and emissions requirements.” The filing was in docket 04-286.

Collision avoidance systems should be standard on all new passenger and commercial vehicles, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a report released Monday. NTSB said only four of 684 passenger vehicle models in 2014 came with a complete forward-collision avoidance system as a standard feature. “You don’t pay extra for your seatbelt,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a news release. “And you shouldn’t have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether.” The FCC is examining whether Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices can also safely use the 5850-5925 MHz band, dedicated to vehicle-to-vehicle crash avoidance systems. Cisco has been working with automakers on a “Listen, Detect and Avoid” protocol that would allow shared use of the spectrum (see 1505070051).

The Department of Commerce's Office of Inspector General is starting an audit of FirstNet, said a notice posted by the office. Fieldwork will be conducted at FirstNet’s headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the OIG said. “Our objective will be to assess FirstNet’s effectiveness in addressing federal agency challenges with respect to the development and planned operation” of a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, OIG said.

Correction: The company where James Dunham was chief operating officer was Wireless Zone, the largest independent third-party reseller of Verizon Wireless (see 1506050029).

VTel asked the FCC to deny motions by SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless to “strike” or “dismiss” what SNR and Northstar claim are new “arguments” in the reply VTel filed in in support of its petition to deny their long-form applications for the licenses on which they were the winning bidders in the AWS-3 auction. The two were the designated entities that worked with Dish Network in the AWS-3 auction (see 1505190046). They have defended their work with Dish as falling within the parameters of FCC rules (see 1505190046). “Apparently confused about the Commission’s rules, SNR’s and Northstar’s latest filings are nothing more than a transparent attempt to try to get the last word to which they are not entitled,” VTel said. “Every fact presented and every argument made in VTel’s reply responds directly to issues raised in the oppositions filed by SNR and Northstar, and neither SNR nor Northstar contends otherwise.” VTel, a family-owned phone company in Vermont, was also a bidder in the AWS-3 auction.

If the FCC makes major changes to the designated entity (DE) program, the TV incentive auction could be in no way as big a success as this year's AWS-3 auction, said representatives of DE Council Tree in a meeting with Wireless Bureau staff, including Chief Roger Sherman. The FCC on Monday posted an ex parte filing on the meeting in docket 14-70. If the FCC “were to impose improvident restrictions on the DE program that disable the type of large investor DE alliances which drove Auction 97 to record levels, multiple studies Council Tree has submitted on the record project that revenues generated by the forward auction portion of the upcoming Broadcast Incentive Auction (BIA) would fall dramatically, imperiling the success of the BIA,” Council Tree said. “The fallout and negative repercussions from such a BIA failure would be immense.” Imposing restrictions on DEs could cut revenue from the auction in half, Council Tree warned. “Its likely impact will begin to be felt ahead of the BIA as broadcasters learn of and focus on the negative impacts of the DE-disabling proposals.” Partnerships with investors have always been part of the DE program, the DE said. These partnerships are critical to helping the program meet its statutory mandate of “widely disseminating licenses among all geographic markets, promoting competition, and avoiding license concentration,” Council Tree said.