The U.S. can win the 5G race, but carriers need more spectrum, CTIA President Meredith Baker said in a Friday commentary in Morning Consult. Baker called on the federal government to set aside and auction for broadband more of the 60 percent of spectrum it controls. She called for an update to rules for siting small wireless facilities. “This week, the leaders of America’s wireless companies meet with the Trump administration to chart a course for 5G leadership” (see 1706220054) Baker wrote. “It is a critical moment. Experts predict that Asian countries will lead the development of 5G networks. China is especially aggressive, recently announcing a significant increase in its investment in wireless infrastructure, as well as plans to start 5G trials in more than 100 cities this year.”

The American Correctional Association asked the FCC to do everything it can to curb contraband cellphones in prisons, in a filing posted Friday in docket 13-111. “We state emphatically that a technological solution exists if the FCC is able to view this as a public safety matter that trumps the FCC's traditional modes of operation,” ACA said. Contraband cellphones pose “an extremely serious and proven threat to the safety of staff and inmates and to the overall security” of correctional facilities, the group said. “Correctional facility administrators, wardens and staff should have the best technology and toolset available to them to combat this illicit cell phone use.” In March, the FCC approved rules and a Further NPRM designed to combat the reported flood of the contraband devices (see 1703230056).

The FCC rejected a request by the Competitive Carriers Association that the agency address as a single item Verizon’s proposed buy of both spectrum licenses from XO Holdings’ Nextlink Wireless (see 1706050042) and of Straight Path and its high-frequency spectrum (see 1705110052). “CCA argues that the amount of overlapping spectrum that Verizon proposes to acquire in the two transactions would foreclose the Commission from adequately analyzing the full competitive effects of each transaction,” said a Wireless Bureau order in Friday's Daily Digest. “CCA is correct that we have broad discretion in determining how best to conduct our proceedings, but we are not persuaded that we should depart from our normal practice of considering transactions separately when the transactions involve different transferors and are not contingent on each other.”

AT&T Labs got FCC Office of Engineering and Technology OK for tests (see here) in the 3550-3650 MHz band. Depending on how it's configured, each radio would use a digitally modulated 10 MHz, 20 MHz or 40 MHz channel and the total transmit power of any transmitter will not exceed 1.6 watts, the carrier said. The experimental license is limited to Plano, Texas. “AT&T Laboratories wishes to conduct tests with multiple new radio systems with integrated adaptive antennas to evaluate the performance of a novel short distance microwave radio digital communications network from several suppliers,” said a filing. “We hope to evaluate various performance characteristics of the system in a real world Rural/Suburban outdoor environment. Performance characteristics such as data throughput, latency, error rates, availability, and susceptibility to and generation of self and external interference will be investigated.” The spectrum is part of the 3.5 GHz spectrum allocated by the FCC for shared use through the Citizens Band Radio Service, including licensed use by carriers. Rules for the band are under review (see 1704190056).

The text of a report and order on rules for states to opt out of FirstNet, approved by commissioners 3-0 Thursday, shows the commission tried to walk a line between encouraging participation in FirstNet and giving states a choice. APCO called opting out a “false choice” and AT&T questioned whether opting out was practical (see 1706190072). “While we acknowledge that the statutory process may be exacting, we also believe that Congress intended to establish a process that affords states a meaningful opportunity to ‘develop and complete requests for proposals,’ as well as to prepare and file the required opt-out plan with the Commission,” the order said. “States are entitled to make a deliberate, informed choice to opt out of the network, so long as the statutory requirements are met.” AT&T won on another issue, with the FCC tightening the requirements for governors to attach their names to any decision even if authority is delegated to another state official. “We agree with AT&T’s suggestion that a reasonable safeguard would be to require evidence of such delegation and require that such evidence be included with the notice submitted to the Commission,” the order said. If a governor delegates authority to another official, the FCC said, it will require memorialization of “such delegation of authority in writing, and for that written delegation be included with the opt-out notice to the Commission.” While FirstNet had called on the regulator to require that a state have a signed contract with a vendor to opt out (see 1706160043), the commission said it wouldn’t go that far since the act creating FirstNet was “ambiguous” on that point. The FCC favors “a reading that allows a more practicable administration of the statute,” the order stated. “Proceeding to the selection of a vendor provides sufficient indicia of completeness to support both statutory and practical requirements for the process.” FirstNet and AT&T expressed general support Thursday. “APCO appreciates the Commission’s efforts to prepare for its important role to support FirstNet’s mission by guarding against alternative [radio access network] plans that fail to make an initial showing of interoperability” with the FirstNet network with the NPSBN,” APCO CEO Derek Poarch emailed Friday. “A state that attempts to opt out will not only need to ensure interoperability, but account for the significant delays that will result to the delivery of advanced, interoperable broadband communications to its first responders.” The order was praised by a competitor to FirstNet. “We think the FCC’s decision not to reject State opt-out plans where the State employs its own core network elements is particularly important,” emailed Michael Rosenthal, director-legal and external affairs at Southern Linc. Rosenthal said that in 2018 the carrier will deliver “a new public safety grade, highly reliable LTE network “ for push-to-talk, voice, and data in its service territory. “Our mission critical LTE network will serve customers years before the availability of FirstNet,” he said. “We look forward to working with interested organizations in Alabama and Georgia to determine how we can provide the best mission critical communications solution for them.”

Samsung began mass production of its first Exynos-branded IoT chip, it said Thursday. The chip includes 802.11b/g/n single-band Wi-Fi connectivity, has Wi-Fi Alliance and Microsoft Azure certification and natively supports the IoTivity protocol from the Open Connectivity Foundation, Samsung said.

Producing and marketing unprofitable handsets cost BlackBerry “quite a bit of money” and was “a drag to the bottom line” before the company decided in the fall to exit that business, said CEO John Chen Wednesday at the company's first shareholder meeting since departing the hardware business in September for a royalty-bearing licensing model. It plans soon a “second program” in which it will license its embedded software to a variety of makers for TVs, wearables “or many of the devices that you will get in contact with on a day-in and day-out basis,” he said. Those devices “will not carry the BlackBerry brand, but they will carry the BlackBerry technology on which we will also get a piece of the royalty,“ he said. BlackBerry has “very good relations” with carriers “on the software side,” Chen said. From “their business case,” there’s no rationale for the carriers to “put in the money” to support the BB10 operating system, he said. “For that, I apologize, but this is the crux of the problems that we had in the company, and this is why we had to move on to a different set of operating systems.”

The Adobe Scan app, which turns a smartphone or tablet into a “PDF creation tool,” had more than 750,000 smartphone app downloads in its first 12 days, CEO Shantanu Narayen said on a Tuesday earnings call. It also can scan and has “intelligent text-recognition” functions via the cloud, Narayen said.

The Zigbee Alliance released the Pro 2017 network specification, calling it the first mesh network capable of operating in two ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) bands: the sub-GHz 800-900 MHz band for regional requirements and the 2.4 GHz for global acceptance, said a Wednesday announcement. The dual-band option gives manufacturers design choice and offers flexibility for municipalities and consumers to connect products across homes, buildings and cities, it said.

The transformative wearables market is expected to grow 20 percent this year to 125.5 million units globally and will top 240 million units by 2021, IDC reported Wednesday. Digital assistants, cellular connectivity and connections to larger systems will fuel growth, said analyst Ramon Llamas. Smartwatches will see a bump in volume in 2019 as they gain cellular connectivity, said IDC, and earwear like the Samsung Gear IconX that send information back and forth to a smartphone app will become more popular.