Qualcomm launched an SoC for wearables Tuesday, at Computex 2016 in Taipei. Features include a power save mode, modem with LTE/3G global band support and integrated applications processor for Linux-based applications that can scale to support voice, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, said the company. Target applications include watches for the “connected kid” and elderly, said Qualcomm, which is collaborating with Aricent, Borqs, Infomark and SurfaceInk with Wear 1100. Qualcomm unveiled a dual-band Wi-Fi chip, with low power, small size and security features designed for connected devices. Qualcomm’s QCA401x features software support for Apple's HomeKit, Google's Weave and the AllSeen Alliance's AllJoyn software framework to help address IoT fragmentation, Qualcomm said. The company also launched a family of tri-radio 802.11ac platforms aimed at boosting home network capacity and optimizing for better consumer Wi-Fi experiences. As connected homes add devices, “Wi-Fi is being stretched to the limit," said Gopi Sirineni, vice president-product management at Qualcomm Atheros.

After years of failing to find effective competition in the wireless industry, the FCC should recognize reality in its upcoming annual report on the state of competition in mobile wireless, Mobile Future said in comments filed at the FCC Tuesday. Put your "analytic coyness aside," the group told the FCC. “Consumer choice has never been greater when it comes to wireless connectivity,” Mobile Future said. “With consumers clearly in charge of the mobile arena, it is time for the Commission to put its demonstrable analytic coyness aside with respect to this report and acknowledge what more than 300 million wireless users see every day: the wireless market is highly competitive; consumers have the freedom to switch providers at any time, pick from an array of devices and tap into millions of choices when it comes to apps and services; and because of this extreme competition wireless is significantly different from other communications platforms.” The comments were filed in docket 16-137. The wireless industry isn’t competitive enough, the Competitive Carriers Association said Tuesday in a news release. “Long-term sustainable competition depends on consumer choices in the marketplace and increased consolidation means fewer choices for consumers,” said CCA President Steve Berry. “It is not only wireless carriers that are affected by consolidation, but also hundreds of companies and small businesses across the country that support and sell to the carriers risk losing business as a result of consolidation. The entire mobile ecosystem is negatively impacted from a lack of competition, and the FCC must conduct targeted intervention to ensure policies encourage, rather than inhibit, competition and innovation.”

T-Mobile said it's getting ready for hurricane season, like other carriers (see 1605260033), in a news release Friday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 10 to 16 tropical storms and four to eight hurricanes, including up to four hurricanes rated category 3 or higher. Before any hurricane is forecast to hit the U.S., T-Mobile sets up an engineering command center near the expected impact area so it can rapidly deploy response teams to ensure service interruptions are kept at a minimum, it said. The teams maintain and deploy backup power machines including generators, fuel cells and cells on wheels, it said.

N.E. Colorado Cellular and Union Telephone Co. jointly told the FCC the agency should reject a request by Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN) and SAL Spectrum for a waiver so SAL can benefit from rural bidding credits in the TV incentive auction. ATN, SAL’s parent, has a market capitalization of nearly $1.2 billion, with more than $355 million operating revenue and nearly $17 million in profit last year, the smaller carriers said. SAL “is able to borrow funds at rates not available to small companies,” N.E. Colorado and Union said. “In the upcoming auction, these are significant advantages unavailable to other rural service providers.” The comments were posted in docket 14-252.

Though Movado Group is “well positioned to capture share” in smartwatches, company research shows about half of U.S. consumers “are not interested in smartwatches,” President Ricardo Quintero said on a Thursday earnings call. “We remain balanced in our approach to this segment of the category,” he said. “We believe in the continued long-term opportunities in the non-connected watch category, driven by brand, image design and innovation.” Movado thinks “obviously that wearables and connected watches will have a place in the watch business,” said CEO Efraim Grinberg in Q&A. “But it really helps to build a new category” in smartwatches while bringing “new consumers into the arena who weren’t wearing” traditional watches, he said. “So we actually believe that millennials will go down both paths.” For example, he sees millennials buying “simple fashion watches, and that’s where we’re going with things like our ultra slim collections,” he said. “But they’ll also buy connected watches and we’ll have those offerings as well.” Movado’s research shows that top capability of smartwatches is “time-telling,” he said. It’s “gratifying to know” that consumers are using smartwatches to tell time, in addition to the “notifications and health functions” that are important to people, he said. The industry is “very early in the rollout” of smartwatches, he said. “The technology will continue to improve” in battery life and "the things that watches can do for you,” he said. “What people seem to forget is that when we all started with cellphones, they were about the size of a brick and weighed a pound or two and then progressively got smaller and better and higher quality and better design. So all of that will begin to happen in this category as well.”

Any test deployment of Globalstar's proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) should include protections of and advance options for future public use of Wi-Fi channel 14, Google Director-Communications Law Austin Schlick told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel aide Johanna Thomas, said an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 13-213. It said Globalstar should be required to publish all the protocols of its network operating system and demonstrate the NOS can exchange spectrum use information with non-TLPS devices without relying on non-public protocols or standards. Globalstar didn't comment Friday.

A U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) report found at least some evidence that cellphones cause cancer. NTP researchers subjected male rats to constant, heavy doses of cellphone radiation. The program gathered data on an unprecedented number of rodents subjected to a lifetime of electromagnetic radiation, at much higher does than anyone would get using a cellphone, NTP said. The program released partial results of the $25 million study, which hasn't been completed. Researchers found “low incidences of 12 malignant gliomas in the brain and schwannomas in the heart of male rats” exposed to radiofrequency radiation (RFR), the report said. NTP tested both GSM and CDMA systems used in U.S. wireless networks. “Potentially preneoplastic lesions were also observed in the brain and heart of male rats exposed to RFR,” the report said. Rats in a control group not subject to the radiation didn't develop similar tumors, NTP said. "No biologically significant effects were observed in the brain or heart of female rats,” the report found. NTP said it decided to release partial results because of the importance of the topic. “Given the widespread global usage of mobile communications among users of all ages, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to RFR could have broad implications for public health,” NTP said. “There is a high level of public and media interest regarding the safety of cell phone RFR and the specific results of these NTP studies.” CTIA is still reviewing the study, a spokesperson said. "The larger scientific community will consider the partial findings, as well as the complete reports, in the context of the many other scientific studies conducted over several decades," CTIA said. "Numerous international and U.S. organizations, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, and American Cancer Society, have determined that the already existing body of peer-reviewed and published studies shows that there are no established health effects from radio frequency signals used in cellphones. The evidence includes official federal brain cancer statistics showing that since the introduction of cellphones in the mid-1980s, the rate of brain cancer in the United States has remained stable.” The NTP is a federal interagency group under the National Institutes of Health.

The FCC warned the public in an enforcement advisory Thursday that the billions of electronic devices that transmit radio signals and are in use in the U.S. must follow all laws and rules. “Before a radio transmitter may be used, manufactured, sold, marketed, or imported into the United States, the Commission generally requires that it first receive an equipment authorization based on a determination that the device complies with the Commission’s technical standards, which are designed to minimize harmful interference and ensure compliance with other operational requirements,” the advisory said: Even if a device is authorized “it may not be used indiscriminately. Authorized equipment must be used in a manner that complies with federal law and the Commission’s rules.”

Twilio, a provider of phone and text message services to app developers, may go public. “The future of communications will be written in software, by the developers of the world -- our customers,” the company said in a prospectus filed at the SEC. “By empowering them, our mission is to fuel the future of communications.” Twilio said in a Thursday news release it hasn't decided how many shares it will offer in the IPO. The San Francisco-based company said it plans to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TWLO.

Sprint is ready to help customers stay connected during hurricane season, which starts Wednesday and runs through Nov. 30, the company said Thursday in a news release. “On the eve of the season, many weather experts are predicting an active tropical storm season with an increase in activity as compared to the past three seasons,” Sprint said. “Sprint’s experienced Emergency Response Team stands ready, having provided voice, broadband data, cellular, and satellite infrastructure for more than 6,100 crisis and special events since 2001.”