Medtronic officials asked the FCC to move forward on new rules that would make medical device manufacturers eligible for medical testing experimental licenses, one of the areas examined in a July Further NPRM (see 1507080050). Medtronic emphasized that the current rules also “preclude operation in the MedRadio band of 401-406 MHz thereby preventing medical device companies from conducting research under a program experimental license on new devices that would operate in the band.” The FCC should move forward with revised rules “so that the promise of the Program Experimental License rules may come to fruition,” the company said. The filing was made in docket 10-236.

Smartphone shipments in Q3 came in under forecast, due to an iPhone miss and pricey Android models, an IDC report said. Vendors shipped 355.2 million units in Q3, said the preliminary report. Shipments grew 6.8 percent from a year ago to 355.2 million, for the second-highest quarter of shipments on record, IDC said. The 3Q shipments were “slightly below” IDC's previous forecast of 363.8 million units, largely due to “slightly lower than expected iPhone shipments” and flagship Android launches from several top-tier original equipment makers with price points “outside the consumer sweet spot,” it said Wednesday. Apple’s 48 million iPhone shipments (see 1510280033) were short of IDC’s 50.4 million unit forecast, analyst Ryan Reith told us. Consumers are becoming more aware of “alternative buying options” when buying a smartphone, Reith said. In Q3, vendors tried to “outclass each other in both features and design," leading to "fierce competition" at the high end as companies try to challenge market leaders Samsung and Apple, analyst Anthony Scarsella said. IDC expects the bulk of volume and growth to come from low-end to midrange phones, particularly in emerging markets, he said.

Representatives of Total Call Mobile said a provision proposed in the June FCC Lifeline order (see 1506180029) establishing “a uniform snapshot date" for Lifeline reimbursements is unfair to carriers, in a meeting with FCC officials. The company gave FCC officials data on its own reimbursement history, said a Wednesday filing in docket 11-42, that "illustrates how TCM would lose revenue each month because customers enroll and dis-enroll in the same month, receive devices and service, but are not counted for the purpose of reimbursement. For example, a customer may enroll on April 2 and dis-enroll on April 15 but TCM would not be reimbursed for the cost of providing service to this customer because April reimbursement is calculated based on the number of subscribers on May 1.” The rule would have cost TCM $921,719 in the first nine months of this year, officials said.

AT&T and Verizon will be eligible to bid for incentive auction reserve spectrum in many markets where they now hold less than 45 MHz of low-band spectrum, and that's a point being missed by many investors, Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said Thursday in a research note. The FCC released information Oct. 15 in a public notice that listed all of the markets in which each of the four major national carriers is reserve eligible (see 1510160065). By Fritzsche’s calculations, AT&T qualifies to bid in 242 markets covering 81.8 million POPs and Verizon in 112 markets covering 58.7 million. Their eligibility overlaps in 69 markets with a population of 19 million POPs, she said. While that means T-Mobile will face off against Verizon or AT&T in many markets, the news isn't all bad for the carrier, she said. T-Mobile already has 700 MHz A-block licenses covering 190 million POPs and recently bought an additional 20 million POPs, she said. T-Mobile will also be helped by Sprint’s absence from the auction and Verizon’s signaling that it may not be that active in the auction, Fritzsche said. She said neither Verizon nor AT&T is reserve eligible in Chicago, the biggest market in which T-Mobile doesn't own 700 MHz spectrum. “In our view, this, in addition to Sprint's absence in the auction, still makes [T-Mobile] well positioned to strategically acquire 600 MHz spectrum in certain markets to augment its existing 700 MHz network,” she said. “But this auction may not be as easy as a cake walk as most think for Team Magenta!”

Verizon introduced a global strategy to simplify the IoT and accelerate market adoption, it said in a news release Wednesday. The company is launching an IoT platform called ThingSpace to allow developers to create applications, customers to manage devices, partners to launch market services and Verizon to launch integrated vertical solutions in an open environment, it said. Verizon also said it's creating a dedicated network core and new connectivity options for next-generation IoT use cases, commercializing its big data analytics engine for IoT deployment and introducing three end-to-end smart cities systems -- Intelligent Video, Intelligent Lighting and Intelligent Traffic Management. Verizon is generating "one of the largest amounts of revenue from the IoT of any company in the U.S.," and is engaged in collaborative projects in connected agriculture, manufacturing and connected machines, pharmaceutical supply chain monitoring and electric vehicles, it said.

Adoption of wireless power technology in mobile phones is slowly pushing adoption of wireless power functionality in vehicles and public spaces, said a report from Navigant Research released Wednesday. But low consumer awareness and competing industry standards remain challenges to category growth, said Benjamin Freas, senior research analyst. Inductive coupling, led by the Qi standard, is the predominant wireless power technology in the market, though it's limited in the amount of power and spatial freedom provided, said Navigant. Magnetic resonance addresses these limitations, but commercialization has been delayed, with products expected to hit the market by the end of 2015, it said. More than 100 million mobile phones are expected to ship with wireless charging functionality this year, generating revenue of $1.3 billion, with revenue forecast to reach $17.9 billion in 2024. “The expansion of wearable electronic devices and IoT devices coupled with technological advances are poised to transform the market,” said Freas.

The FCC tried to provide information to carriers and other potential bidders in the forward part of the TV incentive auction during a webinar Wednesday, but it was delayed for half an hour as a result of technical glitches. “These updates, which were adopted by the commission in July of this year, recognize the challenges new entrants face entering the wireless industry, especially into a marketplace in which more than 95 percent of existing customers are served by the four biggest providers,” said Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman, who opened the webinar after the delay. The former designated entity rules were a “byproduct of an earlier time” and hadn't been adjusted since 2006, he said. The rules were approved by the FCC in a 3-2 vote July 16 (see 1507160051). Sherman noted that the filing window for forward auction participants opens on Jan. 14 and closes Jan. 28. “It’s our hope that this webinar will help potential applicants prepare for the world’s first-ever broadcast incentive auction,” he said. The FCC will continue to answer questions as the filing deadlines approach, he said. Wireless Bureau staff offered a quick run-through on the rules and took a handful of questions.

The Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA and the Telecommunications Industry Association jointly proposed hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules to the FCC as an alternative to a proposed requirement that all devices be HAC ready. “This proposal provides the wireless industry with the flexibility needed to overcome continuing design and other technical challenges, as well as access to handsets for smaller service providers,” the groups said in a Wednesday letter to the agency in docket 10-254. “The wireless industry has significant concerns about the proposal to require HAC of all wireless handsets offered by service providers and manufacturers.” Under the joint industry proposal, the FCC would require that 66 percent of handsets from Tier 1 carriers and manufacturers be HAC compliant. For smaller carriers, the requirement would be 66 percent or at least 10 models, under the proposal. The associations also said the FCC should require service providers to report on their devices on a biannual basis while maintaining manufacturer’s annual reporting requirements. The FCC also should encourage “continued dialogue between the wireless industry and advocates for people who use hearing aid devices about ways to improve education and awareness about the significant availability of HAC wireless handsets, and consider ways to address call clarity concerns and other usability issues for people with hearing loss, including collaboratively reassessing in five years whether these requirements continue to reflect market realities and address the needs of people who use hearing aid devices,” the groups said. In February, groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing said the HAC requirement should apply to all handsets offered by carriers (see 1502230045). The industry associations said they opened a discussion with the Hearing Loss Association of America: “While we recognize that HLAA has and will express support for the proposal to require HAC of all wireless handsets offered by service providers and manufacturers, the wireless industry will continue to seek a consensus-based proposal through an on-going dialogue with HLAA and other stakeholders.”

Nortek announced a health solution to connect seniors with their loved ones through real-time monitoring and notifications. The EverThere solution, which works with a 3G Numera Libris device, is designed to give caretakers visibility into an individual’s daily activities, movements and location via a cloud connection, Nortek said Tuesday. The solution integrates personal safety and emergency response with a monitoring service that is said to allow for proactive engagement and intervention. The Numera Libris GPS-enabled two-way communicator can issue instant, customized notifications to a programmed contact list. Members of a person’s care team can be notified by text or email if a fall occurs, no motion has been detected for a predetermined amount of time or an emergency is reported, Nortek said. EverThere links personal security with Nortek’s home security and control systems using active and passive monitoring, the company said.

Smartwatches will drive the integration of wearables into smart homes, even though fitness trackers were two-thirds of all wearable device shipments in 2014, ABI Research said in a report released Tuesday. The smart home market is expected to reach $34 billion in 2020, said ABI, and wearables integration will be a catalyst for more smart home proximal network communications. The integration is beginning to occur as device vendors open up their application programming interfaces and increasingly share data between wearables and devices such as thermostats or connected appliances, the researcher said. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi "are likely to gain significant traction with wearables penetration in the smart home market," said ABI.