The Supreme Court declined to hear a potential test case (see 1509010052) from Florida on whether police need a warrant before seeking cell tower data. Quartavius Davis was convicted of taking part in a string of 2010 robberies around Miami, based in part on data collected from his cellphone. The justices declined to hear Davis’ appeal of a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected his claims, in an order released Monday. “In this appeal, we are called on to decide whether the court order … compelling the production of a third-party telephone company’s business records containing historical cell tower location information, violated Davis’s Fourth Amendment rights and was thus unconstitutional,” the 11th Circuit held in its May decision. “We hold it did not and was not.” The case was Davis v. U.S.

The FCC Wireless Bureau is seeking input on two more proposed spectrum buys by AT&T. The first transaction is a deal with Peoples Wireless to buy two 700 MHz C-block licenses covering 17 counties in Texas. In the second deal, AT&T proposes to buy from Blanca Telephone a single 700 MHz C-block license covering four counties in Colorado. The licenses both cover cellular market areas, the smallest that were offered in the 700 MHz auction. The bureau said in each case AT&T promises to use the spectrum for 10 x 10 MHz LTE. The Wireless Bureau Friday sought information from the companies involved. In the Blanca deal the bureau asked AT&T for details on its plans “to provide high-quality, high-speed wireless broadband services prior to the Proposed Transaction, including a detailed description of the Company’s current and planned deployment of LTE, which identifies the spectrum bands and the total amount of spectrum used for LTE deployment.” The bureau asked Blanca to explain in detail its decision to sell the license to AT&T, “including any attempts made to enter into a sale of this spectrum or alternative arrangements with parties other than AT&T.” Petitions to deny are due Nov. 27 for each transaction, oppositions Dec. 4 and replies Dec. 11. On Monday, the Wireless Bureau sought comment on U.S. Cellular’s proposed buy of two 700 MHz C-block licenses in Illinois from Adams Telcom. Petitions to deny are due Nov. 30, oppositions Dec. 10 and replies Dec. 17.

New and existing Sprint customers who activate a “qualifying” Samsung smartphone through Nov. 30 can receive a full year of Amazon Prime for free when they sign a two-year contract or pay full retail price for the device, Sprint said in a Friday promotional announcement. Qualifying Samsung smartphones include the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Samsung Note5, Sprint said

The past year has seen a “huge change” in the wireless power industry, said David Green, IHS research manager, during the opening of the Wireless Power Summit. The market moved from an “industry push” model to one where “consumers are pulling technology from us,” said Green in San Diego Thursday. The challenge for 2016, as product availability increases and consumers begin to adopt wireless charging, is how to avoid customers “pushing back” if the user experience falls short, Green said. He referred to a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma, where infrastructure providers haven’t wanted to invest in wireless charging if no receivers could take advantage of the technology. Device makers, in turn, haven’t been willing to pay for receivers without a public charging infrastructure, Green said. Some 55 million wireless charging receivers shipped in 2014, and that number is expected to jump to 160 million this year, including 20 million from wearables, said Green, crediting a rise in consumer awareness. This year, consumer awareness more than doubled to 76 percent. IHS predicts a “big bump” in 2017-2018 shipments, though Green said wireless won’t soon replace wired.

The FCC Wireless Bureau OK'ed the Enterprise Wireless Alliance to be the frequency coordinator for Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) operations in the 2360-2390 MHz band. The commission initially selected the American Hospital Association's American Society for Healthcare Engineering as the MBAN frequency coordinator, but the group backed out, leaving the FCC to designate the coordination to EWA. The commission and EWA signed a memorandum of understanding on the coordinator's responsibilities and authority, said a bureau public notice Friday.

The FCC Wireless Bureau said it will now accept geographic information system (GIS) files for partitioning and disaggregation (P&D) and leasing applications filed in its Universal Licensing System (ULS). “Allowing GIS shapefiles for P&D and leasing applications will provide greater accuracy in specifying geographic areas and will be more efficient for applicants who use the GIS data that is available in ULS for their licensed boundaries,” the bureau said in a Thursday public notice. “This new feature will give immediate feedback to applicants in the event a geographic proposal is inconsistent with an existing market boundary or does not represent a valid shape.” A GIS file format is a standard for encoding geographical information into a file. The standard is widely used by government mapping agencies.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment on an Oct. 20 letter from FirstNet detailing plans to clear incumbent systems from Band 14 (758-769/788-799 MHz), the spectrum that the authority is using to build its network (see 1510220032). As part of the letter, FirstNet asked the FCC to grant licenses or other authorizations in the band only with the condition that “no operation on Band 14 be permitted without the express consent of FirstNet after July 31, 2017.” The bureau said Thursday it had already sought comment on related issues, but “we believe that seeking expedited comment on FirstNet’s more specific request will help ensure a complete and comprehensive record, and is consistent with FirstNet’s expectation of release of a Federal Funding Opportunity for its related grant program in early 2016.” Comments are to be due 14 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

Wireless interests promoting LTE-unlicensed met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday to argue that Wi-Fi and LTE-U can peacefully coexist, said a filing Thursday in docket 15-105. “The wireless industry participants described how LTE-U will allow large and small carriers alike to provide their customers a better wireless broadband experience with faster download speeds, improved security, greater capacity, wider coverage, and seamless mobility,” the industry representatives said. “They emphasized their support of unlicensed spectrum and their strong commitment to Wi-Fi. And they discussed their ongoing collaboration with the rest of the Wi-Fi community to ensure that LTE-U coexists successfully with Wi-Fi.” The Competitive Carriers Association, Ericsson, Qualcomm, T-Mobile and Verizon were represented, the filing said.

The wireless charging industry was stifled by three competing industry organizations, a situation the AirFuel Alliance is looking to eclipse with an all-inclusive strategy encompassing all flavors of wireless charging, AirFuel Alliance President Ron Resnick told us. AirFuel, the new name announced Tuesday (see 1511030038) replaces the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and Power Matters Alliance (PMA), which merged in June (see 1506010046). The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), meanwhile, remains committed to the competing Qi standard. The AirFuel alliance envisions a “seamless, interoperable global infrastructure” that includes a public charging infrastructure for places including coffee shops and airports. For a wireless charging ecosystem to take hold, “you have to be able charge your devices in public wherever you go,” Resnick said. A working group within the alliance is focusing on public charging solutions, but Resnick conceded that venues such as airports won’t commit to wireless charging until, and if, Apple stamps its seal on a technology. "That's why they're holding back," he said. IHS released a brief analysis Wednesday, after the announcement of the AirFuel Alliance, saying it “shows their commitment to simplifying the wireless power landscape for the consumer” by “reducing the number of brand names and logos on products.” But the alliance hasn’t addressed the issue that the existing PMA and A4WP standards “are not interoperable” because they work on “completely different frequencies,” said analyst David Green. The alliance hasn’t said “how they might differentiate between these standards for existing products or any future design” that doesn’t cover both standards, said Green.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCOE) sought comment Wednesday on its draft cybersecurity practice guide for mobile device security. The draft guide notes how existing technologies can help companies improve security of sensitive data stored on employee-used mobile devices. The guide includes a “typical” IT scenario that “shows organizations how to configure a device so that it can be trusted, as well as how to remove the device from systems" if it's stolen or lost, or when an employee leaves a company, NIST said. The guide also includes instructions for installing and integrating security solutions into existing IT infrastructure. “Mobile devices extend or eliminate the notion of traditional organization boundaries, posing challenges that nearly all businesses regardless of sector or organization size” face, said NCCOE Deputy Director Nate Lesser in a news release. Comments on the draft guide are due Jan. 8, NIST said.