The FCC rejected a request by the Competitive Carriers Association for a 30-day extension of the reply comment deadline on the FCC’s June 10 Connect America Fund further NPRM. Replies are due Monday. CCA asked for more time so it could study the first round of comments as well as comments on the commission’s 10th Broadband Progress Notice of Inquiry. “Extensions of time are not routinely granted and we do not believe that circumstances cited by CCA warrant a grant of additional time,” the agency said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/Z7ruaL).
Data roaming shouldn’t be controversial, but the market by itself won’t fix problems, said T-Mobile Vice President-Federal Regulatory Affairs Kathleen Ham in a blog post (http://t-mo.co/1sZPPrL). In May, the carrier asked the FCC for a declaratory ruling providing guidance and “predictable” enforcement criteria for determining whether the terms of data roaming agreements meet the “commercially reasonable” standard adopted in the commission’s 2011 data roaming order (CD May 28 p9). Comments on the petition are in and the verdict was nearly unanimous, Ham said. “Except for AT&T and Verizon, of course, virtually every party weighing in at the FCC supports T-Mobile’s proposed benchmarks, as well as the other necessary minor clarifications,” she wrote Tuesday. “Consumers should not have to forgo T-Mobile’s ‘Un-carrier’ benefits simply because they work in or travel through coverage gaps or hard-to-build areas. Nor should local and regional carriers be unable to attract customers who aren’t content to stay always within their home markets."
NTelos selected Alcatel-Lucent to provide 4G LTE network services for its LTE buildout in West Virginia and parts of western Virginia, Alcatel said Wednesday. The network is to serve an additional 2.1 million people, Alcatel said. This is the third network expansion provided by Alcatel-Lucent since nTelos’s 2012 launch of its LTE network in 2013, Alcatel said. The company said it was worked with nTelos since 2000.
Worldwide phablet shipments, defined as smartphones with screen sizes from 5.5 to less than 7 inches, will reach 175 million units worldwide this year, passing the 170 million portable PCs expected to ship during the same period, said International Data Corp. (IDC). Next year, phablet shipments of 318 million are forecast to top tablet shipments, projected at 233 million for the year, IDC said. Phablets began picking up volume in 2012, but the category has already put pressure on the smaller end of the tablet market, where growth of 7-inch tablets has slowed, it said. IDC expects consumer replacement cycles to shift to larger-sized tablets, but that trend hasn’t made up for the falloff in shipments of smaller-sized tablets, which has led to lowered expectations for the tablet market in 2014 and beyond, IDC said. Apple’s expected entrance into the phablet space with the iPhone 6 this month is expected to bring more attention to phablets “as larger screen smartphones become the new norm,” said analyst Melissa Chau. IDC expects phablets to grow from 14 percent of the worldwide smartphone market this year to 32 percent in 2018. While consumers in mature markets including the U.S. and Western Europe are likely to own a combination of PCs, tablets and smartphones, “in many places the smartphone -- regardless of size -- will be the one connected device of choice,” IDC said. Falling average selling prices (ASPs) for phablets and smartphones will help drive the trend, it said, noting that in 2013, phablet ASP was $568 versus a regular smartphone at $320. This year, phablet ASP will drop to $397 while smartphone ASP falls to $291, it said. “Consumers are still trying to figure out what mix of [mobile] devices and screen sizes will suit them best,” analyst Tom Mainelli said. “What works well today could very well shift tomorrow as phones gain larger screens, tablets become more powerful replacements for PCs, and even smart watch screens join the fray."
The FCC’s former defaulter rule waiver (CD Sept 2 p1) toughens slightly changes originally proposed by wireless carrier associations. The text was released after our deadline (http://bit.ly/1q8rS36). The waiver applies only to the AWS-3 auction. It provides a waiver only for cases when the notice of the final payment deadline or delinquency was received more than seven years before the AWS-3 short-form application deadline and the amount of the default or delinquency falls below $100,000. The waiver also requires that the default or delinquency was paid within two quarters after receiving the notice of the final payment deadline or delinquency and that it was the subject of a legal or arbitration proceeding “cured upon resolution of the proceeding.”
The U.S. experience demonstrates that spectrum auctions, when done right, are a successful mechanism for maximizing the use of spectrum, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a speech Monday to the IX International Regulatory Workshop in Cartagena De Indias, Colombia. Pai released his written remarks Tuesday (http://bit.ly/W7gxUx). “Auctions are more successful when they are kept simple, transparent, and market-driven,” he said. “That means setting clear rules in advance and sticking with them. That means avoiding onerous conditions on particular spectrum. That means giving everyone a fair opportunity to bid. These are the best ways to promote network construction, to raise money for the treasury, and to give consumers the benefits of innovative new services.” Pai also said flexible use policies and a robust secondary market have been critical to the rollout of wireless. The FCC is committed to reviewing deals in the transfer of spectrum from one company to another within 180 days of applications being filed, he said. “This is a good thing. By providing procedural certainty, the FCC has enabled spectrum to flow more freely to its highest value use.” The FCC also allows licensees to sell off part of their holdings, Pai noted. “We have found that these secondary market policies have encouraged spectrum efficiency and reduced transaction costs,” he said. “Indeed, there have been thousands of secondary-market transactions involving mobile broadband licenses over the past several years.” The FCC has also authorized local experiments to examine the aftereffects of the IP transition, he noted. “We are going to see what happens when aging infrastructure is turned off,” he said. “These tests will give us valuable data. And we will then use that data to make a successful national transition to all-IP networks. Once that happens, companies will be able to focus their investments exclusively on high-speed networks.”
ZENS added the PuK wireless charger, a Qi-based inductive charger designed to be built into furniture for living and working environments. Applications include desks, counters and bedside tables for use in offices, hotels, restaurants, kitchens and homes worldwide, the company said. Installations can be built-on or built-in to existing or new furniture, the company said. The ZENS PuK has seven induction coils that continually detect a device’s signal so that a charging phone doesn’t have to be placed in a precise location but can be “freely positioned,” ZENS said. Foreign Object Detection software automatically shuts down the charging process if metal comes between the Qi phone and the charger, ZENS said, preventing objects from absorbing energy from the wireless power supply field and creating a heat hazard.
Sprint launched another version of the HTC One Friday. The HTC One E8, available in white or gray, is offered with Sprint Easy Pay, which allows qualified customers to buy the phone for $0 down with 24 monthly payments of $20.84. Features include Android 4.4.2, a 5-inch display, 2.3 GHz processor, 13-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear cameras, Wi-Fi Calling and HD Voice. The phone can be a 3G/4G hotspot, Sprint said.
Sensorstream, which calls itself a “struggling” San Francisco-based startup, sees a $1 trillion opportunity in smart watches and their ecosystem of components, its founder, Tom Rapko, told us. Sensorstream just landed a design patent from the Patent and Trademark Office for a circular smart watch case that’s buttonless with interior threading “to support an upgradable modular electronics package,” and the company is looking for partners, Rapko said. “The wearables business is going to go the way of a garage startup” reminiscent of Apple’s founding, Rapko said. “Even though the Valley is hugely software-centric, I think there’s a huge opportunity in the hardware space for wearables, and in particular, smart watches,” he said of developer work currently happening in the Silicon Valley on behalf of wearables. Rapko thinks smart watches will “drive disruptive innovations in social networking, entertainment and commerce,” he said. Sensorstream’s smart watch case is called Pi, the company said. It differs from traditional watch cases in that it’s devoid of all external buttons, to protect it from the elements, it said. The threaded design on its interior promotes adaptability to modular electronics that can be fitted in and enhances “the ergonomic contours of the smart watch to hug the wearer’s wrist for enhanced stability,” it said. Smart watches have the “potential to rival” or exceed the most successful consumer electronics “ever released” in terms of fast adoption rates, Rapko said. Form factors “will help shape consumer adoption of smart watches,” he said. “Aesthetically, we feel a circular display is superior to the dreary square. Frankly, the end game is fusing the look and feel of a Swiss luxury watch with the core functionality of a smart phone.”
Roughly 30 percent of smart home owners experience monthly glitches with core functions of connected devices, said research presented by Parks Associates in a recent webinar on the impact of the Internet of Things on support services. Examples of snags homeowners have encountered with smart home products include timing issues with automated lighting control, where lights didn’t come on at the programmed times, thermostats that didn’t keep temperatures to programmed levels, and door locks that didn’t perform as expected, said analyst Patrice Samuels. She called the findings “disconcerting” to smart home owners. “Because these devices are in the earlier stages, they're more susceptible to functional glitches,” Samuels said. But at such an early stage of the category’s development, “you really don’t want anything to go wrong in the devices that are controlling your home,” she said. Support of smart home devices requires a “greater sense of urgency,” she said. Support will be critical to the advancement of the smart home to prevent technology snafus from becoming “barriers to adoption” and the growth of the IoT, Samuels said. Connected entertainment products are more technologically mature, on the other hand, and problems associated with using Blu-ray players, smart TVs, streaming media players and gaming consoles are “less the result of glitches” and more related to quality concerns that can relate to bandwidth, Samuels said. With streaming media players, consumers may complain about sound or picture quality versus being able to play a program. Consumption on streaming media devices and smart TVs has increased “dramatically” over the past year, while consumption on gaming consoles has gone up “pretty steadily” over the past three to four years, said Samuels. The average broadband household owns an average of seven connectable devices, and more consumers are now connecting devices such as game consoles and Blu-ray players to the Internet versus only using their core functions. Demand will continue to increase with IoT growth, said Samuels.