Apple’s watchOS will have 47 percent of the smart wristwear market by 2019, an IDC wearables report said. Smart wristwear shipments are forecast to grow from 24 million units globally this year to 85 million units by 2019, IDC said. A proliferation of devices, expanded experiences and a range of price points will lift overall consumer demand for wearables to 173 million worldwide by 2019, IDC said Monday. In 2015, total wearables shipments are forecast to reach 76 million units, up 163 percent from last year, it said. Smart wearables are roughly a third of the total wearables market, compared with basic wearables, led by fitness trackers, which are the rest, analyst Jitesh Ubrani said. Smart wearables are projected to surpass basic wearables in 2018 due to advancements in user interfaces and features, he said. Smart wristwear -- including watches and bands capable of running third-party apps -- are driving the smart wearables category, led by Apple Watch, the Motorola Moto 360, Samsung’s Gear S devices and the Pebble Time, the industry research firm said. More vendors are entering the space, “setting the stage for more selection and ultimately more volumes,” Ramon Llamas, research manager, said.

The numbers were “extremely positive” over the weekend on the pre-sale of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple said Monday in a statement: "We are on pace to beat last year's 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale Sept. 25." BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk noted Monday that for the first time since the release of the 3GS in 2009 Apple isn't releasing pre-order numbers. “Of course in 2013, there was no pre-order for the iPhone 5S, so there was no data to report,” Piecyk said in a blog post. “Apple instead indicated that it would top last year’s record first weekend sales of 10 million units. While this is encouraging, first weekend sales includes China this year, more than doubling the addressable market for launch day compared to last year when China was not launched until mid-October.”

Boomerang Wireless told the FCC it's updating its planned Lifeline offering, reporting on a call with agency staff. The company "is updating the description of two of its top-up plans available to its Lifeline customers,” Boomerang said. “The $30 top-up plan will provide 3000 anytime voice minutes or texts and 5 MB of data; the $50 top-up plan will provide 3000 anytime voice minutes or texts and 4 GB of data.” The carrier previously asked the FCC to designate it as an eligible telecom carrier in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The filing was posted Monday in docket 09-197.

4G Americas released an executive summary on 3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 13, describing the key technical features designed to further move the industry toward 5G. Monday's release comes “just as the mobile industry begins discussion and development of another generation … of mobile technology to face unprecedented challenges: accommodating skyrocketing traffic growth amid a spectrum shortage, escalation of the Internet of Things and a vision for network transformation that will create an all-IP environment,” 4G Americas said. The summary provides a broad overview the various features under development for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced, the group said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation presented evidence in two NSA-related cases last week that it said confirms the participation of Verizon Wireless, Sprint and AT&T in the NSA’s mass telephone records collection under the PATRIOT Act, and asked the court to consider the new evidence, wrote EFF Frank Stanton Legal Fellow Aaron Mackey in a blog post Friday. “Despite broad public acknowledgement, the government is still claiming that it can dismiss our cases because it has never confirmed that anyone other than Verizon Business participated and that disclosing which providers assist the agency is a state secret,” Mackey said. In EFF’s two lawsuits, Smith v. Obama and First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA, EFF asked the courts to consider Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court filings that were recently made public as evidence proving the phone companies' participation in the NSA’s programs.

T-Mobile fired back at Sirius XM, which questioned earlier T-Mobile arguments that the administrative law judge process is the best alternative for resolving interference disputes. T-Mobile filed comments in July on a Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic proposal (see 1505110031) seeking a “fact-based, transparent, and timely adjudication process for spectrum interference disputes.” Sirius "misrepresents the record and the numerous parties that agree with T-Mobile, makes baseless claims, and fails to provide an adequate explanation of why the ALJ Option is the better approach to resolving interference disputes,” T-Mobile said in a filing posted Friday to RM-11750. “Sirius’ own actions abusing the Commission’s processes -- by injecting an engineering problem of its own creation into a transactional proceeding -- makes T-Mobile’s point. Creating a complicated trial-type process is exactly the wrong way to resolve engineering-based issues and would only open the door to further abuse.” Sirius said in an August filing that existing procedures for handling complaints fall short and the need for improved procedures is driven by ever complex interference scenarios. A Sirius spokesman declined to comment.

There appears to be little interest at the FCC in a phase two of the Mobility Fund, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly warned a Rural Wireless Association meeting at CTIA Friday. “There is little discussion regarding a special technology-specific fund for wireless providers,” O’Rielly said. “In fact, the commission already proposed to reduce the scope of previous outlines for a Mobility Fund Phase II and reallocate some funding to CAF [Connect America Fund] Phase II or the Remote Areas Fund, which signaled the waning interest in the program.” O’Rielly said the FCC should do more to simplify infrastructure build-out in rural America and elsewhere. The 2014 infrastructure order aimed at small-cell deployment was a “good start,” he said. “But we must expand upon the environmental and historic preservation exclusion to include small cell equipment that is installed on any structure, including those with no pre-existing antennas.” The FCC must also address “twilight towers,” built between March 2001 and March 2005, which weren't specifically required to go through the historic preservation review process, O'Rielly said. “We cannot afford to have these towers remain in regulatory purgatory any longer.” The FCC also needs to re-examine its technical rules in such areas as antenna height and power limits to see if the rules can be further liberalized to promote build-out in rural areas, O’Rielly said. He said the agency “gravely erred” when it decided to abandon the longstanding policy that designated entities must be facilities-based providers. “This is the only way to ensure that the bidding credits would go to small and rural businesses that would actually build and provide service using these licenses,” he said. “We are enabling DEs that act as mere ‘pass-throughs,’ leasing or flipping their spectrum to existing wireless providers. We are allowing a select few to get rich while large communications providers -- ineligible for the credit -- access spectrum at a reduced cost at the expense of the American taxpayer and legitimate providers seeking to use the spectrum to provide service to their subscribers.” O’Rielly’s remarks were posted by the FCC.

The Land Mobile Communications Council received more public-safety support for its proposal for interstitial channel interference contours in the 800 MHz band (809-817/854-862 MHz), this time from the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. "The matrix developed by the LMCC incorporates protection contour values to be applied to and from all known technologies operating in the 800 MHz band," the NPSTC said in comments filed in FCC docket 15-32. "NPSTC believes the LMCC recommendations will serve public safety and the overall land mobile community well to protect systems on existing channels and allow implementation of new interstitial channels that provide more spectrum opportunities." APCO had tentatively supported LMCC's proposal and Mobile Relay Associates had supported most of it (see 1509100075).

FirstNet released a draft of its operational architecture, it said in a blog post Friday. The draft is based on an analysis of more than 10,000 comments from across industry, states, tribes, local governments and agencies, the post said. In the draft, FirstNet identified areas of general consensus and significant disagreement, the post said. It said it did a diligent review of each function, weighing the benefits and costs from each point of view, including public safety, industry and FirstNet. The network said it also took into consideration the expertise that resides in states and industry, as well as the technical, financial, programmatic and contracting expertise that resides within FirstNet. The operational architecture lets FirstNet communicate the scope of the functions it believes are required to meet its 16 objectives, the network said.

Motorola Solutions introduced the Talkabout T480 radio, its first two-way radio specifically designed to help families during emergencies, said Motorola in a news release. The radio features a special alert button, safety whistle, weather alerts, flashlight and always-charged capability in a single device, the release said.