The National Radio Astronomy Observatory objected to iRobot’s pursuit of a waiver of FCC rules to allow outdoor use of robotic lawn mowers (RLMs) and their control beacons in the 6240-6740 MHz band. The observatory said 5925–6700 MHz is generally protected and iRobot’s commitment to label its RLMs as for “Consumer use only; use must be limited to residential areas,” won't offer adequate protection. The band is protected to allow “interference-free observation of the 6.66852 GHz spectral line of methanol (CH3OH) that is abundant in star-forming regions and serves as a galactic beacon of star-forming activity owing to its maser-like qualities,” the observatory said. This lets astronomers “do a kind of celestial cartography that measures distances to star-forming regions with high precision, charting the course of galactic evolution,” it said. The filing was posted Friday in docket 15-30.

Auctions for commercial bidders to receive exclusive use of spectrum "may become a thing of the past," said Defense Spectrum Organization Director Stuart Timerman at the 2015 Military Radar Summit, the Defense Information Systems Agency said in a news release Thursday. "The need for spectrum in the development of current and future military capabilities makes it nearly impossible" for these auctions to continue, he said. The Department of Defense, FCC, NTIA and industry have to work together to analyze and test spectrum sharing proposals, Timerman said. The National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network established last year, includes federal, academic and commercial test facilities for simulations of spectrum sharing (see 1502050032), he said. Department of Defense systems will have "indefinite sharing" access for spectrum acquired in the AWS-3 auction and federal agencies that have to relocate or share spectrum will recover costs from auction proceeds, according to the Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act, he said. Spectrum access systems (SAS) can help the government and commercial users with spectrum sharing by providing a database of processing utilization, Timerman said. SAS developed by commercial companies provide information about systems that are operated on which frequencies, he said. "This visibility can provide insight into what types of interference users may get and even provide the option of shutting down a system to avoid interference."

In Q4 2014, 43.6 percent of U.S. consumers with a smartphone owned an Apple iPhone, according to a survey by Nielsen. Samsung followed with 31 percent, LG at 7.6 percent, Motorola at 5.8 percent and HTC at 3.9 percent, all from the Android community. Windows Phone-based Nokia phones had 2.2 percent, and BlackBerry smartphones were 1.2 percent of the U.S. smartphone population, said Nielsen. Android was the leading operating system among U.S. smartphone owners, at 49.5 percent of users, it said. Sixteen percent of smartphone owners said they had acquired their handset within the past three months, bringing smartphone penetration to 77 percent of mobile phone owners in the U.S., said Nielsen. Among those who had recently acquired a phone, 91 percent chose a smartphone, compared with 82 percent in the year-ago quarter. Overall, smartphone penetration grew 8 percentage points over Q4 2013, it said. Nielsen’s Mobile Insights is a monthly survey of 30,000-plus mobile subscribers aged 13-plus in the U.S.

Amped Wireless announced a high-power plug-in Wi-Fi range extender said to boost Wi-Fi coverage by up to 10,000 feet, depending on operating environment. The REC33A ($159) is said to eliminate dead spots and improve Wi-Fi connections at speeds not previously achievable by a plug-in range extender. Powering the extender are a dozen amplifiers, an external high-gain dual antenna and a gigabit wired port to deliver speeds up to 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and 1300 Mbps in the 5 GHz band, said the company.

The most important lesson from the AWS-3 auction is “the unquestionable demand for mobile broadband spectrum should not be underestimated,” said Competitive Carriers Association President Steve Berry, responding to an AT&T blog post (see 1503040036). “Competitive carriers, many of whom provide robust and sometimes the only service to rural and hard to reach areas of the U.S., must have the opportunity to bid on and win spectrum -- consumers in these areas should not be denied services comparable to their urban counterparts.” The most “dangerous” outcome would be letting AT&T and Verizon “walk away with the lion’s share” of the spectrum sold in the TV incentive auction, Berry said.

FirstNet is beefing up its technical management team in Boulder, Colorado, hiring wireless industry executives with backgrounds in devices, applications, testing and network engineering, FirstNet said in a news release. Joe Martinet, new director-devices, joins FirstNet from consultant IMRI. Mark Golaszewski, director-applications, also joins from IMRI. Both previously advised the network authority. Michael Van Zuiden, director-labs, joins FirstNet from Motorola Solutions, where he worked on LTE issues. Lynn Bashaw, director-network operations, was at Reliance Globalcom. Boulder is FirstNet's technical headquarters.

Samsung’s decision to incorporate both PMA (Power Matters Alliance) and Qi wireless charging capabilities in its new flagship Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge is expected to drive a “huge increase in receiver shipments” for 2015, said David Green, analyst for IHS, which predicts more than 100 million receivers will ship by year-end from mobile handsets alone. Green said the Nokia Lumia 930 has a Qi receiver built in, but the announcement from market leader Samsung “provides a huge boost to the wireless power industry” with the potential to drive market awareness and shipments. He called the decision to provide a dual-mode receiver capable of receiving power from either a PMA or a Qi transmitter an “interesting step” that could be an increasing trend for other product announcements during the year. "Manufacturers are clearly focused on providing a seamless charging experience for their end-user, where interoperability is extremely important," said Green. Trimodal technology -- adding the Rezence standard backed by the Alliance for Wireless Power -- will become more likely “in the medium-to-long term,” he said. Further product releases using both inductive and resonant wireless charging approaches are expected later this year in “numerous applications,” including Intel’s upcoming Skylake chip architecture, said Green, predicting 2015 will be a “breakthrough year” for wireless charging.

Hyundai's Blue Link smart watch "companion app" is available for download from Google Play and will be available for the Apple Watch soon after its April release, the automaker said Wednesday. The Blue Link platform allows features like remote start and service information to be quickly accessed through devices like smart watches and smartphones, Hyundai said. To work the app on a smart watch, the wearer taps an icon or uses voice commands to activate remote functions, it said. The Blue Link smart watch app must be paired via Bluetooth to an owner's smartphone that contains the Blue Link mobile app, it said. "Remote functions can then be executed from almost anywhere in the U.S. as long as the user's smartphone has a Bluetooth and cellular or Internet connection." The app will work with first- and next-generation Blue Link-equipped Hyundai models, said Hyundai.

Smartphone ownership in the U.S. increased from 8 percent in 2005 to more than 80 percent in 2014, but consumers continue to use the same eight apps on their mobile devices, said smartphone and tablet research from market researcher Parks Associates. Social networking apps were the most commonly used, followed by gaming and music apps. “The average app use among smartphone users has held relatively constant," said Harry Wange, Parks director-health and mobile product research. "This leaves an increasingly wide variety of apps competing for the finite attention span of the consumer." A similar trend was discovered with tablets. Despite use increasing from about 30 percent in 2012 to 60 percent in 2014, consumers continue to use the same seven apps on their tablets, it said.

T-Mobile is dead wrong that the AWS-3 auction was bad for consumers, AT&T said Wednesday in a blog post. AT&T Vice President Joan Marsh said the wrong lesson to draw from the AWS-3 auction is that the auction shows the need to protect competitors to AT&T and Verizon in next year’s TV incentive auction. “The auction reallocated 50 MHz of valuable paired spectrum to the wireless industry -- an allocation that T-Mobile itself has long advocated for,” she wrote. Among the auction's real lessons is that you can’t win if you don’t bid, Marsh wrote. T-Mobile won 151 bids for a total of $1.77 billion, but at one point had entered as much as $3.5 billion in bids, she said. “From a strategic perspective, one can surmise that T-Mobile came to the auction with a $3.5B budget but, as valuations rose, decided to take some of its capital off the table, which was certainly its prerogative to do.” Results also show that Dish Network, not AT&T and Verizon, was T-Mobile’s real competitor in the auction, Marsh said. Bidding patterns suggest T-Mobile was focused on the G-block, “bidding aggressively for it in major markets like Chicago, Seattle and Denver,” she said. In the end, the Dish-controlled designated entities were the ones that outbid T-Mobile for the block in the top 100 markets, Marsh said. The auction results also show a fierce competitiveness that mirrors the wireless industry, Marsh said. “Even setting aside Dish’s unusual bidding construct, auction competition was going to be fierce anyway you cut it. T-Mobile is a big proponent of competition unless they are facing it in an auction – there they prefer protection.” T-Mobile has offered its own takeaways from the AWS-3 auction. “It is an undeniable fact that in Auction 97 AT&T and Verizon’s deep pockets enabled them to win 63 percent of all paired AWS-3 spectrum, or roughly 91 percent of the value of all the spectrum won by wireless carriers in that auction," T-Mobile responded. "They have the incentive and the ability to foreclose smaller carriers from spectrum auctions, and the last auction results clearly demonstrate that. Considering Verizon and AT&T also currently control 73 percent of the nation’s low-band spectrum, a similar outcome at next year’s incentive auction would be a disaster for competition and innovation in mobile broadband.”