T-Mobile notified the FCC it won't deliver 911 text messages to 13 public safety answering points that told the FCC they're text-ready. In the cases of all but one of the PSAPs, T-Mobile said the calling center isn't currently within the T-Mobile coverage area. The PSAP serving Virginia's Carroll and Grayson counties and the city of Galax said it encountered a software conflict and would resubmit its request for service later, T-Mobile said.

The FCC’s final regulatory scheme for the shared 3.5 GHz band is now effective, the FCC said in a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register. The only parts not in effect are a few information collection requirements still being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, the notice said. “Facing ever-increasing demands of wireless innovation and constrained availability of clear sources of spectrum, the Citizens Broadband Radio Service is an opportunity to add much-needed capacity through innovative sharing,” the FCC said. “With this Second Order, we finalize the regulatory scheme we created in 2015, putting in place the last rules necessary for this service to become commercially available.” The FCC approved the order at its April open meeting (see 1604280062) and it was released May 2 (see 1605020059).

Cisco asked the FCC for extra time to submit a prototype device as the agency looks more closely at sharing between Wi-Fi and dedicated short-range communications systems in the 5.9 GHz band. Cisco has been one of the major players in the debate over the band (see 1602050048). A June FCC public notice imposed a July 30 deadline for submitting devices for testing, but gave the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology authority to “grant waivers or extensions of the deadline or requirements as necessary,” Cisco said in a filing in docket 13-49. Cisco asked for a delay until Aug. 18. “Due to prototype production timelines, and previously scheduled business travel on the part of Cisco staff overseeing the testing of the prototype (e.g., attendance at standards meetings), we will be unable to complete our internal review by July 30,” Cisco said.

Government officials met with prospective spectrum access system (SAS) administrators and environmental sensing capability (ESC) operators headed into the launch of sharing in the 3.5 GHz band. “We are encouraged by ongoing industry harmonization efforts to develop a common set of models,” was part of the message from the government, said an FCC filing in 15-139. “Testing of SASs will be based on a single model to ensure consistency and accuracy with expected correct outcome. The initial model to be used for implementation and testing may evolve in future, e.g. more accurate modeling of clutters and use of measured data.” Officials from the FCC, NTIA, DOD and the U.S. Navy were also at the meeting. CTIA and companies Amdocs, Comsearch, Federated Wireless, Google, iPosi, Key Bridge, Qualcomm and Sony attended, said the filing. The FCC is reviewing applications of companies to be SAS administrators and ESC operators, the FCC said. The FCC said in May it received eight applications from companies that want to fill either role, and interest was high in the band. (see 1605170042).

As 5G is launched, consumers shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Wi-Fi and wireless networks, Deutsche Telekom’s 5G Executive Program Manager Antje Williams told the Broadband Forum’s quarterly meeting in Berlin, said a Wednesday news release. “When you look at the amount of challenges and traffic that has to be transported in the future, we will not manage that with just the mobile network,” Williams said. “Today, a much bigger portion of whatever is transported runs through fixed line networks and we strongly believe the solution for the future has to be a combination of the two, or access-agnostic networks. This means that when using the networks, consumers shouldn’t see a difference between mobile access and Wi-Fi access.” Standardization of the two networks is now separate but “to become one network, we need more alignment,” she said.

The FCC established a pleading cycle on a proposed spectrum swap between AT&T and U.S. Cellular (USCC). The FCC already is examining a swap between USCC and Sprint (see 1607070042). The latest swap includes lower 700 MHz, PCS and AWS-1 licenses, but no customers or network facilities would change hands, the FCC said in a Wednesday notice in docket 16-178. “As a result of the proposed transaction, AT&T and USCC each assert that they would augment network capacity and improve the quality of services offered in the subject geographic areas,” the FCC said. “The Applicants also claim that they each would use the newly acquired spectrum to implement enhanced LTE capacity. In particular, AT&T maintains that it would hold 24 megahertz of contiguous, paired Lower 700 MHz spectrum in most of the counties involved in this transaction, allowing for a 10×10 megahertz LTE deployment.” Under the trade, USCC would pick up spectrum in 21 counties in parts of Illinois, North Carolina and Washington, the FCC said. AT&T would gain 12-24 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum in 23 counties in portions of Idaho, Illinois, Indiana and North Carolina. The deal will get higher scrutiny because those pickups move AT&T above one-third of the low-band spectrum in many of the markets, the FCC said. Petitions to deny are due Aug. 17, oppositions Aug. 24 and replies Aug. 31.

CTIA said 16 participating wireless companies have successfully fulfilled the wireless industry Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment. “In doing so, the authorized user may choose to disable or enable the anti-theft solution at any time,” CTIA said Tuesday. “By granting authorized users access to the pre-installed anti-theft tools, consumers’ phones and personal data are more secure.” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had pressed industry to make the commitment (see 1506110037). “CTIA and its members understand that smartphone theft remains a serious problem and that anti-theft tools only work if adopted widely," Wheeler said in a statement. "I applaud the wireless industry’s steps to make anti-theft tools accessible and available for consumers."

T-Mobile's Binge On customers can now stream video from more than 100 video services without touching their high-speed data bucket, T-Mobile said Tuesday in a news release. Subscribers have already streamed more than 765 million hours of video using the zero-rated Binge On service, the carrier said. ABC, Apple Music, the Big Ten Network, Dish Anywhere and the Disney Channel are among the providers now participating in Binge On, T-Mobile said. The FCC is investigating whether the service violates net neutrality rules (see 1604260054). T-Mobile cited comments from a number of smaller video providers happy to be part of Binge On. “We want our programming and the opportunity to watch the programming easily in front of as many people as possible,” said David Moffly, CEO of Baeble Media. “Binge On removes one of the significant negative barriers everyone encounters when viewing video on their mobile devices -- ‘How much of my data plan is this going to chew up?’”

Making effective use of spectrum is key to effectively fighting forest fires, said NTIA Associate Administrator Paige Atkins Monday in a blog post. So far in 2016, there have been more than 31,000 wildfires over nearly 3 million acres of land, Atkins wrote. “These fires aren’t bound by borders, so cooperation between local, state and federal agencies is key,” she said. “NTIA, which manages federal spectrum use, sees cooperation as a cornerstone of its approach to getting the most out of the nation’s limited spectrum resources. Demand for spectrum is ever increasing -- federal agencies are developing more complex wireless systems to better perform critical missions, and industry is using spectrum to fuel a wireless revolution, connecting smartphones, tablets and other devices and objects at faster and faster speeds.”

The wireless network of the future may be very different from the networks of today, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said in a letter he plans to file with a presentation at the FCC. Some 5G networks “might be owned and operated by the carriers we know today. Indeed these firms may be the best at deploying 5G networks,” Hundt wrote. “But the network architectures of 5G will vary according to the uses of those networks. They will be versioned to specific ends. … Like so many markets, the ability to learn about customers is now an essential feature of retailing, and translating that to network deployment we can see that homogeneous, one size fits all networks are the past. In the future every end use will get the network architecture optimally suited for it.” Hundt has done work for Ligado Networks, which is seeking to convert satellite spectrum to terrestrial use for wireless broadband. Hundt said he plans to file the letter and presentation in docket 14-177. The fifth generation of wireless is a game changer, Hundt said. The FCC “faces the challenge and opportunity of helping to shape a new network -- a combination of digitization, phased array antenna breakthroughs, new forms of managing electromagnetic waves, signal processing on a finger nail sized chip, distributed data centers housing more information than any book-lined library, sensors and beacons operating on the bare suspicion of battery power, and many other inventions.”