Arizona chose AT&T over Rivada and two others submitting alternative plans, as Gov. Doug Ducey (R) opted in Monday to FirstNet. In a request for proposal (RFP), Arizona received alternative radio-access-network plans from Rivada, Macquarie Capital and ClearTalk Wireless's ClearNet (see 1708010068). Arizona is the second state with an RFP to opt in and the 13th state or territory overall. Some consider opting out to be politically treacherous (see 1708140004). A Rivada spokesman responded, "For Arizona's sake, I hope they got something really great in return for calling off a procurement that would only have strengthened their hand with AT&T if they'd gone through with it."

The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee is to discuss a report by its Spectrum Efficiency Subcommittee, among other reports, at its quarterly meeting Tuesday. The meeting will start at 8 a.m. MDT and will be webcast from Colorado. “Industry has emphasized the need for access to low-, mid-, and high-band spectrum in order to be able to meet customer expectations.” And, the report asks, “How does spectrum efficiency play into the need for access to spectrum across a broad range of frequencies like this, and which bands are used to provide which services? How should these types of frequency requirements apply to government users?” The report suggests that obstacles to better efficiency include a loss of efficiency during spectrum re-farming, the tradeoff between cost and power and regulatory restrictions.

The FCC Wireless Bureau won’t give SAL Spectrum extra time to build out a lower 700 MHz B Block license it controls in Texas. The order is in contrast to the extra time the FCC afforded T-Mobile in December to build out 700 MHz licenses covering parts of Montana and Wyoming (see 1612210038). “While the six counties comprising SAL’s License area may be rural, the area is relatively small (approximately 7,785 square miles), generally flat, and its weather temperate,” the bureau said. “It is thus dissimilar in key factual respects from the rugged Montana and Wyoming license areas that T-Mobile acquired … which are vast (approximately 136,325 square miles), mountainous, and subject to extreme weather," and noted four providers already serve much of SAL’s License area: "The combination of these factors underscores that buildout is not as difficult for SAL’s License area given, for example, its size, the climate, and the long period of time that SAL has had to build.”

Sprint representatives raised questions about a Universal Service Administrative Co. proposal requiring submission of eligibility documentation collected after July for Lifeline subscribers enrolled before July 1 but not found in an eligibility database. A filing in docket 09-197 reported on a meeting with Wireline Bureau staff. “Any proposal which requires affirmative action by a Lifeline subscriber will be confusing and/or burdensome to these consumers, and past experience has proven that such proposals will result in the de-enrollment of a significant percentage of otherwise eligible subscribers who simply do not respond to requests for action,” the carrier said. “It had de-enrolled tens of thousands of Lifeline subscribers who did not respond to requests to submit the requisite annual recertification form ... The percentage of customers who failed to respond increases dramatically when they are asked to submit specific documentation.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved an experimental license for Mimosa Networks Friday to test its proposal for offering broadband in spectrum above 5.7 GHz. “The FCC is considering Mimosa’s proposal to allocate the 5.85-6.4 GHz band for terrestrial fixed wireless services,” the company said in a filing seeking authorization. “Mimosa seeks to test equipment in that band in order to collect, and then provide to the FCC and other government agencies, real-world information about the utility of that band for fixed services and the ability to use that band on a shared basis with incumbent users, including government radiolocation services.”

The Competitive Carriers Association said it filed with the FCC a petition to deny the proposed transfer of spectrum licenses from Straight Path to Verizon. Verizon acquired Straight Path after a bidding war with AT&T (see 1705170012). The licenses include 735 millimeter wave spectrum licenses in the 39 GHz band, 133 licenses in the local multipoint distribution service bands at 28, 29 and 31 GHz, nine common carrier point-to-point microwave licenses and one nonexclusive nationwide license in the 3650-3700 MHz band (see 1707210028). Petitions to deny were due at the FCC Friday. "If approved, the transaction would consolidate enormous amounts of millimeter wave spectrum into the hands of Verizon and would exceed the FCC’s spectrum screen in key local markets,” CCA said in a Friday news release. “CCA encouraged the Commission to deny the application and instead make Straight Path’s licenses available to all carriers through competitive bidding.” Verizon didn't comment.

The smartwatch market is poised for a second-half spike, driven by cellular-enabled smartwatches, Canalys Research reported Thursday. The researcher forecasts 12 million cellular-based smartwatches will ship worldwide by year-end, and it expects the next Apple Watch, reported to include cellular capabilities, to establish the company as the catalyst of category growth. Apple didn’t comment. Worldwide wearable band sales grew 8 percent year on year in Q2, led by Xiaomi's 3.5 million shipments, followed by Fitbit's 3.3 million units (see 1708030061), with Apple, whose only wearables are smartwatches, dropping to No. 3 at 2.7 million Apple Watches. Early hype of the smartwatch was “short-lived” and the market has to focus on compelling uses, said analyst Mo Jia. Apple can use its strong relationships with carriers to create “critical points of sale” for cellular smartwatches and related services, along with its own stores, said analyst Jason Low. ABI Research, meanwhile, reports revenue from smartwatches, smart glasses and wearable scanners to top $60 billion in 2022, up from $10.6 billion this year.

Energous made “significant progress” toward bringing its RF wireless charging technology to market, CEO Stephen Rizzone told investors. The company, with investments of $10 million and $15 million from partner Dialog Semiconductor, is on track to deliver its first commercial-scale quantities of silicon to small-scale, early adopter customers this year, he said. In a market slow to take off with many companies and technologies, Energous’ edge is the ability to send “significant power at a distance to focused receivers all under software control, safely, and within the current rules and regulations in the regulatory environment,” said Rizzone. The company positions the technology toward mobile devices including smartphones. The company completed the approval process with the FCC two months ago for through-the-air charging of any wireless device, putting a process in place for companies to submit products for approval, said Rizzone. “We didn’t want to have to effect a rule change because it takes potentially years.”

Plugging into the FirstNet network will be relatively easy and only require a public safety user to buy a new SIM card, public safety consultant Andrew Seybold blogged Thursday. “The new SIM [subscriber identity module] identifies the device (and the user) as a member of the public safety community,” Seybold wrote. “The network is then notified that when this device is on the network, in addition to normal AT&T capabilities, the user will have access to all additional capabilities and information being made available only to the FirstNet public safety community. The AT&T network and soon FirstNet Band 14 recognizes a user as a public safety user by the SIM in the device and the information it contains.” Meanwhile, a FirstNet representative emailed Thursday the authority has now received feedback from all the states and territories on their plans, as part of consultation review meetings or the formal comment process. “FirstNet and AT&T are currently working through the review process and remain on track with our schedule: which is to provide responses back to the states and make the official plan available for the Governor’s decision by mid-September,” the official said. Most of the questions are “in the areas of overall process, technical/network operations, and coverage,” the official said.

The FCC got feedback from General Electric that some in industry want small, census-tract sized licenses in the shared 3.5 GHz band. GE filed in docket 12-354 as the FCC sought comment on proposed changes filed by CTIA and T-Mobile (see 1708090058). A big issue is size of priority access licenses (PALs) the FCC will offer. “GE is currently developing a suite of fixed point-to-point networks involving applications such as utility substation automation, positive traction control for trains, oil and gas pipeline monitoring, smart metering, wastewater management, heavy mining, and other forms of IoT and machine-to-machine telemetry,” the company said. “These use cases rely on the unique propagation characteristics of 3.5 GHz spectrum, which travels further and withstands more interference than high-band millimeter wave spectrum, but has sufficient bandwidth available to support higher throughput compared to more limited low-band frequencies.” An initial order said census-tract licensing “is ideally suited to geographically targeted applications, such as those in oil refineries, coal mines, shipyards, and construction sites,” GE said. Those types of deployments would be impractical if the FCC uses partial economic area licenses as proposed by CTIA and T-Mobile, it said. Paul Milgrom, auction expert and Stanford University economist, assured the FCC it could auction census-tract sized licenses given current technology. “There is clear real-world evidence that it is possible to conduct very many simple auctions on a single platform in a short period of time,” he wrote on behalf of WifiForward and the Wireless ISP Association. “EBay currently has about one billion active listings for physical goods at any one time. … Nearly every visit to a commercial web page on the Internet triggers an auction for the right to show an ad.” A former spectrum official told us that with the FCC yet to release an NPRM, it's too early to discuss a possible compromise on geographical license size or other aspects.