Metro Two-Way failed to appear at a prehearing conference on a proceeding to decide whether the company is qualified to remain a licensee (see 1805040009), said a ruling by FCC Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel. As a result, all of Two-Way’s licenses were revoked, Sippel said.
Verified first responders may individually subscribe to FirstNet at more than 5,300 AT&T stores nationwide and online, the company announced Monday. Some agencies don’t provide wireless plans and devices to personnel, so this lets responders sign up under a personal account, the carrier said.
The Public Safety Bureau approved limited waiver of FCC emergency alert system and wireless emergency alert rules to let carriers to participate in a test by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. MSHP's exercise will be a “combined live EAS and end-to-end WEA test” on July 17, with a backup date of July 19, the bureau said. A May letter said “the record of success of previous WEA alerts sent by the state has been sufficiently inconsistent that MSHP believes that, given recent events across the nation, ‘it is imperative the MSHP test its ability to send WEA alerts … and expose the public to the type of messages they may receive during times of crisis,’” the order said. “We are persuaded by the MSHP Letter that the proposed test of the EAS and WEA will help educate the public, and ensure that MSHP personnel are sufficiently well trained in how to use the EAS and WEA.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved a request by AT&T for waiver to meet population-based, rather than geographic-based, construction benchmarks for a lower 700 MHz B block license serving the Bethel, Alaska, market. The Rural Wireless Association raised objections, and renewed them Monday. “As the Commission has previously stated, 'Alaska is indeed unique among other markets in the 700 MHz band,’” said Monday's order. “Challenges of bringing widespread service to Alaska are not present in any other state to the same degree.”
The National Weather Service said it reviewed the comments on a record refresh on multimedia enhancements to wireless emergency alerts and agrees with those who want requirements. The FCC received comments in May, including from the NWS, on whether to mandate including multimedia content in alerts (see 1805290059 and 1805300010). The NWS “agrees with the numerous public safety organizations that support the incorporation of multimedia to improve the life-saving capability of WEA,” the service replied Monday in docket 15-91. “Information graphics, inundation maps, video, American Sign Language and other forms of multimedia can cut across traditional language barriers and help guide people out of harm’s way.”
An updated streaming codec could help consumers on sub-4G connections get clear transmissions, Fraunhofer said Friday. “As SVOD operators enter markets with less capable mobile networks, they will need to offer videos at 50 or 100 kbit/s for successful transmission,” said Marc Gayer, deputy division director-audio and media technologies. The technologies are in a patent licensing program administered by VIA Licensing.
Unlicensed use in the 6 GHz band will clearly cause "pervasive and consistent" -- not rare -- interference to the 95,000 licensed fixed service links in the band, the Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition said in a filing to be posted in docket 17-183. It responded to arguments by tech companies seeking unlicensed use of the band that there won't be harmful interference (see 1805140049). FWCC said the level of interference the tech companies concede to "would decimate FS reliability," but the actual interference "would be orders of magnitude worse." It said most of the mitigation measures the tech companies propose wouldn't protect 6 GHz FS. The group said the "extraordinarily high reliability" required of FS operations means even a brief interference even to a sole receiver could disable numerous links for several minutes while it resynchronizes. Outside counsel for the tech companies didn't comment.
The Land Mobile Communications Council wants FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly to “help eliminate the sale of non-compliant radio devices” on eBay and Amazon, it said in a letter Friday. O’Rielly is pursuing a similar effort on unauthorized set-top boxes (see 1805250040), LMCC said. LMCC anticipates that the Enforcement Bureau will issue alerts proposed by LMCC about the sale of noncompliant devices, and wants O’Rielly to let Amazon and eBay know about the risks of non-compliant devices in the interim, said the letter.
The FCC's keeping census-tract licensing for the 3.5 GHz band will mean General Electric will bid on census tract priority access licenses and become a citizens broadband radio service licensee, while the company's industrial and infrastructure customers will bid on even more PALs to build out private LTE networks with GE for IoT applications, it told an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, recounted a docket 17-258 filing Friday. Industrial and infrastructure interests "will compete vigorously" in census-tract based license auctions, the company said.
Essential Products, started by Android co-founder Andy Rubin, will build Master Quality Authenticated audio capability into its smartphone, said a joint announcement Thursday. Essential customers will be able to stream MQA music via the Tidal platform by downloading the Android app from Google Play.