Silicon Labs' buying Sigma Designs (see 1712080056) is a “significant and positive move” for Z-Wave and its vendor supporters, ABI Research's Jonathan Collins told us. Silicon Labs is a “well-established provider of silicon” across various protocols that compete with Z-Wave, the analyst said, and the chipmaker “may well look to try to move Z-Wave toward some silicon level harmony with 802.15.4-based protocols ZigBee and Thread.” Z-Wave revenue dipped slightly this year, said Parks Associates' Tom Kerber. It's not "the must-have in the way it once was,” said Collins. Increased competition from rival protocols led large service providers to roll out “Z-Wave-free systems,” with providers turning largely to Zigbee, while Bluetooth 5 gains momentum, he said.

Drones weighing between 0.55 and 55 pounds must be registered with the FAA, due to new rules included in the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Donald Trump Dec. 12, Wiley Rein blogged Monday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in May vacated a previous rule requiring drone registration (see 1705190052). The defense bill reinstated the rule, instituted to increase security and safety with small drone operations, the communications law firm said. Failure to comply with the new law could result in civil penalties up to $27,500 and criminal penalties including fines of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment up to three years.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected on procedural grounds a 2013 NTCH challenge to an Enforcement Bureau rejecting the carrier’s roaming complaints against Verizon. The complaint alleged Verizon violated the FCC’s voice roaming orders and data roaming order “by offering roaming rates that were unjust and unreasonable, unreasonably discriminatory, and commercially unreasonable.” The bureau rejected the complaint in 2016. NTCH sought judicial review without seeking review from commissioners, the D.C. Circuit noted. The bureau order “is not an order of the Commission,” said the ruling. “Without a final order from the Commission, we have no jurisdiction to address NTCH’s petition for review. Because NTCH failed to seek Commission review before petitioning for review in this court, we are constrained to dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction.” NTCH didn’t comment. Judge Harry Edwards wrote the opinion, joined by Judith Rogers and David Tatel.

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Monday on a proposed waiver by IDS GeoRadar (IDS) to permit certification and use of its 76-77 GHz band Hyper Definition Radar system in mines and tunnels, to detect threatened collapses, landslides and rockfalls before they occur. A lower-power version of Hydra, with 28 dBm effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), is designed for monitoring at close ranges in underground mines and tunnels, said a public notice. A higher power version (45 dBm EIRP) would be used for monitoring open pit mines, with a range up to 800 meters. Comments are due Jan 17, replies Feb. 1, in docket 17-358.

The FCC released the text of its public notice on twilight towers, approved by commissioners Thursday (see 1712140049). Action on the towers will potentially open thousands of existing towers for collocations “without the need for either the collocation or the underlying tower to complete an individual historic review, thus ensuring that these towers are generally treated the same as older towers,” the notice said. “Facilitating collocations on these towers will make additional infrastructure available for wireless deployments, reduce the need for new towers, and decrease the need for new construction.”

AT&T wireless workers will get $1,000 each and retroactive wage increases back to Feb. 12 if they ratify a tentative agreement with the carrier by Jan. 12, the company said in a Friday news release detailing the agreement. AT&T and Communications Workers of America reached earlier last week after nearly a yearlong contract dispute (see 1712140014).

Representatives of the ATIS Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee said they briefed staff from the FCC Public Safety Bureau on technical questions on wireless emergency alerts. Among topics was geo-targeting, said a filing in docket 15-91. “Device-based geo-targeting would require fundamental changes to existing cell broadcast technology," the filing said. “The determination of whether and how device-based geo-targeting could be accommodated in existing handsets will be examined by the industry, although ATIS noted that it is likely that some legacy devices will not be able to support the changes via a software upgrade.” Microsoft also reported on a meeting with bureau staff. The bureau "sought input on the impact that different means of transmitting geo‐coordinates in conjunction with emergency alert text to mobile devices would be likely to have on mobile device performance," the company said. "Microsoft offered to explore those questions and will provide a substantive response at a later date."

Augmented reality “has the potential to reach people right on their mobile devices,” but with AR so new, creators must think carefully when designing “intuitive user interactions,” blogged Alesha Unpingco, a Google user experience designer. Mobile AR “introduces a new set of interaction challenges,” and with the smartphone “the user’s window into the augmented world,” creators need to “consider ways to make their mobile AR experiences enjoyable and usable for varying screen sizes and orientations,” she said Wednesday. She promised “guidelines.”

An FCC judge OK’d settlement of Sprint and Indiana’s dispute over 800 MHz rebanding costs (see 1711210028). Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel approved the agreement and dismissed the case in a Thursday order in docket 02-55.

AT&T and Communications Workers of America announced a tentative agreement resolving a nearly yearlong contract dispute covering 21,000 employees in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The four-year agreement will be submitted to membership for a ratification vote, AT&T said Wednesday. Workers will vote by Jan. 12, a CWA spokeswoman said. The proposed agreement includes guaranteed call center work, a 10 percent raise over four years and job security protections, CWA said. It shifts $2,500 to base pay from commissions for retail workers and provides average pay of $19.20 per hour, 74 percent higher than national average pay for retail workers, CWA said. “Call center representatives, retail workers and techs from small towns and big cities joined together and refused to back down until they made good jobs at AT&T a reality,” said CWA President Chris Shelton. AT&T strives for fair deals providing union workers with “excellent wages and benefits,” a spokesman said Thursday. It's AT&T’s 32nd labor agreement since 2015, and it doesn’t have any other contracts open, he said. Wireless workers participated in a three-day strike in May (see 1705190046) and won support from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and other elected officials (see 1709080048).