FCC wireless facility siting rules, being challenged by Montgomery County, Maryland, and other local governments, are consistent with the Spectrum Act, and should be upheld by the court, the agency said in a pleading to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case is being heard. The case centers on how the FCC interpreted Section 6409(a) of the act in an October order designed to speed deployment of distributed antenna systems, small cells and other wireless facilities (see 1410170048). “The Commission adopted an objective test to determine the substantiality of a proposed facility modification,” the FCC said. “This approach is sensible. It is consistent with the Commission’s use of objective criteria to define substantiality in various related and unrelated contexts. And it furthers Congress’s intent to reduce the zoning delays that occurred when States and localities had virtually unlimited discretion to review even insubstantial facility modification requests.” The FCC offers local governments safeguards in the order, the commission said. The order “expressly preserves” environmental and historic preservation review of telecom projects and allows states and localities “to condition a facility modification request on compliance with concealment measures and generally applicable building and safety codes,” the agency said. “Nothing in the Order prevents a State or locality from seeking a waiver of the Section 6409(a) rules where application of those rules would contradict their intended purpose.” Contrary to Montgomery County arguments, the order doesn’t require local governments to administer a federal program, the agency said. "Nothing in the statute or the Order requires State or local officials to administer a federal program -- or for that matter, to do anything at all,” the FCC said. “States and localities have a choice: They can approve a facility modification request covered by Section 6409(a), or they can allow federal rules to fill the void.” CTIA and PCIA released a statement Tuesday urging the 4th Circuit to reject the municipal challenge. “As independent reports repeatedly estimate that usage for mobile services will continue to increase at a rapid pace, it’s vital that wireless companies, wireless carriers and infrastructure providers are able to deploy and update their infrastructure to meet the needs of Americans, businesses and governments,” the associations said.

Silicon Labs' Bluegiga is sampling a dual-mode Bluetooth Smart-ready module that integrates Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Basic Rate/Enhanced Data Rate (BR/EDR) wireless technologies. The BT121 combines a Bluetooth radio, microcontroller and on-board Bluetooth software stack supported by Silicon Labs’ Bluetooth Smart Ready software development kit and BGScript scripting language, which it said Monday will minimize design time, cost and complexity. Applications include connected home, health and fitness, wearables and point-of-sale terminals, said Silicon Labs. The BT121 module supports ultra-low-power and high-data-rate Bluetooth connectivity applications, enabling it to connect to legacy devices and newer devices that support Bluetooth Smart, it said.

Informa Telecoms & Media picked 4G Americas to host a new event, 5G World North America, at the company’s LTE North America event in November. “It is vital that North America focuses on 5G research and development,” said Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas. He said “5G is still in its early stages in terms of examining use cases, requirements and component technologies.” The event is scheduled for the Intercontinental Hotel, Dallas, Nov. 18-19.

Global messaging market revenue is expected to decline 0.5 percent to $112.9 billion by 2019, even though messaging traffic is expected to double, Juniper Research said in a news release Tuesday. It said the anticipated drop is spurred partly by the projected increase of over-the-top messaging applications. Global OTT messaging traffic is expected to triple from last year to 100 trillion by 2019. Although OTT applications are experiencing increased growth, they're having trouble monetizing services, leaving SMS financially in full control of the market, said the industry researcher.

A Deutsche Telekom spokesman Tuesday denied a report in the New York Post that DT CEO Timotheus Hoettges has made clear he would prefer a deal with Sprint to one with Dish Network. Hoettges said it in a meeting with investors at an RBC Capital Markets road show in Toronto last week, the tabloid reported. The paper “asked us to confirm a couple of statements” from Hoettges at the conference, the spokesman said in an email. “We did not do so because they were false.” DT is the majority owner of T-Mobile USA. Industry observers said last week a DT/Dish deal likely would pass muster with U.S. regulators if it is proposed (see 1506040051). T-Mobile CEO John Legere was in Washington Tuesday for a series of meetings on Capitol Hill and at the FCC, he said on social media.

Wireless carriers have the technological capacity to curb prank calls to 911 from “nonservice-initialized” (NSI) handsets, the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) said in comments filed in FCC docket 08-51. Most carriers support an agency proposal that it drop a requirement that calls from NSI phones must go through to public safety answering points (PSAPs) (see 1504020047). Carriers could require that these phones be registered with the owner’s name and forward this information with the call to the PSAPs, NASNA said. Carriers also have the “technical means” to block just fraudulent calls, it said. These two solutions, “had they been implemented, could have resolved the fraudulent NSI call issue long ago," the group said. One NASNA member describes prank calls to PSAPs as a “plague,” the association said. “Accidental 911 calls may be lower than in the past since today’s smart phones do not have an ‘emergency call’ feature available from the lock screen like they used to, but it is no more difficult to make a fraudulent 911 call from a smart phone than from any other cellular device.”

The U.S. delegation should push for an agenda item on spectrum for unmanned aerial systems at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019, Nokia Networks said in comments posted by the FCC Tuesday. WRC-15 is to start Nov. 2 in Geneva and one of the items will be a look at whether spectrum for drones should be taken up at the following meeting (see 1505200052). The FCC WRC Advisory Committee has been unable to reach consensus on that question. The U.S. “has been investing heavily” in the sector “including for the delivery of broadband communications to underserved, rural, and remote areas and areas suffering from disasters,” Nokia said. It said the U.S. shouldn't ignore the need for more globally harmonized spectrum for broadband. “The amount of spectrum required to support mobile broadband services is expanding exponentially,” Nokia said. “Correspondingly increasing is the desirability for the existing and newly identified spectrum to be harmonized globally across frequency range, channel plans, and emissions requirements.” The filing was in docket 04-286.

Collision avoidance systems should be standard on all new passenger and commercial vehicles, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a report released Monday. NTSB said only four of 684 passenger vehicle models in 2014 came with a complete forward-collision avoidance system as a standard feature. “You don’t pay extra for your seatbelt,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a news release. “And you shouldn’t have to pay extra for technology that can help prevent a collision altogether.” The FCC is examining whether Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices can also safely use the 5850-5925 MHz band, dedicated to vehicle-to-vehicle crash avoidance systems. Cisco has been working with automakers on a “Listen, Detect and Avoid” protocol that would allow shared use of the spectrum (see 1505070051).

The Department of Commerce's Office of Inspector General is starting an audit of FirstNet, said a notice posted by the office. Fieldwork will be conducted at FirstNet’s headquarters in Reston, Virginia, the OIG said. “Our objective will be to assess FirstNet’s effectiveness in addressing federal agency challenges with respect to the development and planned operation” of a Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network, OIG said.

Correction: The company where James Dunham was chief operating officer was Wireless Zone, the largest independent third-party reseller of Verizon Wireless (see 1506050029).