Public safety agencies are using the 4.9 GHz spectrum, set aside for its use by the FCC more than a dozen years ago, APCO said in a report filed at the agency Monday. The band has been useful in meeting the wide-area video surveillance needs of public safety agencies and is a good option for video in emergency response vehicles, APCO said. Spurring use of the spectrum has been a long-standing FCC priority. In June 2012, the agency approved revised rules designed to boost utilization of the band (see 1206140066). APCO cited applications in California, New York City and Washington state, though it conceded the band remains underutilized. “Acceptance and deployment has been slower than anticipated and still remains behind projected, and optimal, numbers,” the report said. “The importance of the 4.9 GHz band to public safety is likely to grow substantially in the near future. The 4.9 GHz band is unique in offering public safety users agency-specific and localized options for supporting high bandwidth video and data communications.” APCO urged more emphasis on frequency coordination and said the FCC should allow for airborne and robotics use of the spectrum.

The U.S. has emerged as the global leader in 4G LTE and a slew of reports backs that up, Tom Sawanobori, CTIA chief technology officer, said Friday in a blog post. “We were one of the first countries to deploy 4G LTE starting in 2010 and have expanded coverage, deployed advanced technology and enabled high speed broadband networks to stay at the forefront,” he wrote. Sawanobori cited, among other reports, a recent finding by Mosaik Solutions that 82 percent of Americans -- 256 million people -- now have a choice of four or more LTE-based providers. “And U.S. carriers have invested more than $166 billion in their networks over the last six years, deploying the advanced LTE technology that is carrying the increasing volumes of data traffic consumers demand -- more than 4 trillion megabytes of data in 2014 alone,” he said.

AT&T added three wearables Friday targeted at fitness enthusiasts. Citing the rise in health-related information available, the company said wearables are a big part of helping consumers make healthy decisions based on heart rate, sleep and activity sensing. The Basis Peak ($199) packs four sensors to measure heart rate, motion, perspiration and skin temperature and tracks duration, stages and quality of sleep, AT&T said Thursday. The GPS-enabled Garmin vivoactive ($249) smartwatch comes preloaded with running, biking and golf apps. Users can pair it with their smartphone to receive alerts for incoming texts, calls and social media notifications, AT&T said. The Garmin vivofit 2 ($99) fitness tracker monitors steps and calories burned and tracks sleep quality that can be displayed on a smartphone app, AT&T said. The devices are available in select AT&T locations and at att.com.

The Internet was buzzing with anticipation for the next-generation iPhones heading into the smartphones’ release Friday. Retailers and carriers last week tried to push their way to the front of consumers’ eyes for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and advertising highlighted the upgraded finishes, led by the wildly popular rose gold along with silver, gray and gold. Engadget noted that the rose gold model had rose gold screws to match. Target is selling 6s and 6s Plus in stores only on the AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks, it said. Sprint (see 1509240023) and T-Mobile touted consumer-friendly upgrade deals to get customers to swap up their still-valuable iPhone 6 phones. Verizon joined them, announcing its first iPhone upgrade plan that allows customers to get a new phone every year without having to wait for the contract to end. Carriers are competing now with Apple, which offers its own upgrade program promising “a new iPhone every year” starting at $32.41 a month. That could be trouble for companies including eco-ATM and Gazelle, whose business models rely heavily on the iPhone’s trade-in value. CNET focused on the 4K content creation capability of the iPhone 6s models, which it said will lead to a “surge” in user-generated 4K video. “The content that ushers in the age of 4K is likely to come from the stars and aspiring filmmakers on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, and from regular folks who shoot their baby's first steps or grandma's 80th birthday,” CNET said. Meanwhile, IHS forecasts a 22 percent jump in iPhone shipments this year versus 2014. “Sales of the iPhone 6S should do better than past iPhone initial sales because of wider country availability early, especially China,” said an IHS email, which forecast Apple will ship 236 million iPhones this year. The key differentiator this year for Apple is 3D Touch, which is “strongly differentiated from every other smartphone maker's phone,” IHS said. 3D Touch will power new apps that are exclusive to the iPhone “because Android smartphones lack the hardware support needed for a pressure sensitive screen,” it said. The pressure will be on Apple next year to continue to drive upgrade sales with a radical new design, IHS said. That will be “a greater challenge than achieving success in 2015,” when Apple was able to capitalize on sales of larger screen phones, it said.

The Catholic Technology Network and the National EBS Association asked the FCC to move forward on a Further NPRM focusing only on licensing the remaining educational broadband service (EBS) white spaces throughout the U.S. Lawyers for the group reported on a call with Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman and others at the agency. The FNPRM should be limited in scope “because incorporating other issues (such as changes to EBS educational reservation requirements as was suggested by one party in the [L]ifeline reform docket) would undoubtedly delay the resolution of the proceeding,” the EBS advocates said. That is according to a filing posted Friday in docket 03-66.

CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association jointly offered the FCC near- and longer-term solutions for enabling consumers to keep their phone number no matter where they live or work. The groups, in a letter filed Friday, said they are responding to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who on July called on them and the largest national carriers to identify practical solutions to nationwide number portability. “Many consumers consider their wireless number a part of their identity, and believe they can port their telephone number to any provider when they move to a new location,” CCA President Steve Berry said in a news release. “Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and both consumers and carriers are negatively impacted by the inability to port a number.” Under the proposal, carriers can “voluntarily enter contractual arrangements with third parties with access to numbering resources in areas where the … provider doesn’t have a network presence, to offer providers access to the local area of the telephone number of the potential subscriber,” Berry said.

U.K. telecom regulator Ofcom Friday said it would allow the use of white spaces devices (WSDs) to access the Internet, on a transitional basis, in bands other than the UHF TV band. Ofcom in February approved use of the devices in the TV white spaces. For the time being, Ofcom is allowing the use only of licensed, manually configurable devices. But Ofcom said it's reviewing other options and expects to issue revised rules by the end of 2018. “Ofcom has a duty to ensure that the radio spectrum is used in the most efficient way,” Ofcom said in its statement. “We have decided to authorise the deployment of WSDs on a license exempt basis where they meet certain technical and operational requirements to ensure there is a low probability of harmful interference to other spectrum users.”

A day ahead of the iPhone 6 release, Sprint said it will offer the 6s 16 GB phone for $1/month and the 6s Plus for $5/month with the trade-in of an iPhone 6. The promotion, part of Sprint’s iPhone Forever program, is for customers who “can’t wait to get their hands on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus,” and is available to new and upgrade-eligible Sprint customers, the carrier said. Offers also extend to higher-capacity phones: the iPhone 6s is priced $5.77/month for the 64 GB and $10.53 for the 128 GB with the trade-in of an iPhone 6. For the 6s Plus, the 64 GB version is $9.77/month and the 128 GB device is $14.53/month with corresponding trade-ins, Sprint said. Sprint will also offer a $10/month price on iPhone 6s 16 GB or $14/month on iPhone 6s Plus 16 GB with the trade-in of an iPhone 5s, it said. Through Dec. 31, customers on any other carrier who switch to Sprint -- or existing Sprint customers who are upgrade-eligible and turn in any other smartphone -- will get a promotional rate of $15 per month on the iPhone 6s 16 GB, regularly $22/month without a trade, it said.

Turing Robotic Industries announced a Dark Wyvern edition of its Turing Phone that comes with a WiGig-enabled protective case. The Turing Armor case packs technology that can transfer 3.2 GB of data in less than 25 seconds and back up 64 GB of data in less than eight minutes, the company said. The phone is a dark gray version of the Turing unbendable Liquidmorphium design and features the same authentication methodology, chip platform, screen and dimensions of the company’s series one Android-based phones, it said. Price of the 128 GB edition is $999, including case and battery pack, the company said.

The FTC won't block an agreement between Sprint and Shentel, under which affiliate Shentel will acquire Sprint wholesale partner nTelos Wireless, the commission indicated. The deal was unveiled in August (see 1508100063). Industry officials said at the time they also expected the deal to get the FCC’s nod (see 1508110067). Edinburg, Virginia-based Shentel is also known as Shenandoah Telephone Co.