Mississippi is the only state in which FirstNet authorities haven't done their initial consultation, or data collection, as part of the authority’s push to launch a national network for first responders. That information is in a chart on FirstNet’s Web page. In New Jersey, FirstNet has done an initial consultation but is awaiting data collection.

Nokia officials met with FCC staff about the company’s recommendations for high-frequency spectrum. The FCC should provide at least 400 MHz blocks and license terms of at least 10 years, with an expectation of renewal, Nokia said. The FCC also should “support secondary market transactions and also pre-auction swaps for large contiguous spectrum blocks” and also consider bands below 24 GHz for wireless broadband, Nokia said in a filing posted Friday in docket 97-95 on the meeting with staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology and International, Public Safety and Wireless bureaus.

Members of the Wireless Innovation Forum met with FCC staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology and Wireless Bureau on the industry's work on testing and certification of spectrum access systems, environmental sensing capability and Citizens Broadband Radio Service devices in the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band, said a filing posted Friday in docket 12-354. Executives from Comsearch, CTIA, Google, Huawei, Nokia, Qualcomm, Sony, Verizon, other companies and the National Institute of Standards and Technology attended. The group filed a report updating the commission on work in the area. “The Spectrum Sharing Committee of the WinnForum serves as a common industry and government standards body to support the development and advancement of spectrum sharing technologies for the 3.5 GHz band,” the filing said. “This Committee is intended to facilitate the interpretation and implementation of FCC rulemaking to a level that allows industry and government parties to collaborate on implementation of a common, efficient, well functioning ecosystem around this technology.”

CEO Michael Small and others from Gogo met with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and key aides to press for FCC action on the 14 GHz Air-Ground Mobile Broadband Service. “Gogo discussed its critical need for additional spectrum to meet the growing capacity demands of commercial airlines and their passengers as well as federal and state government and military customers,” Gogo said in a filing posted Friday in docket 13-114. “Establishment of another in-flight service allocation would not introduce any new air safety or security risks.” Gogo officials said that to ensure flight safety and security, the company “must already satisfy stringent Federal Aviation Administration testing and approval requirements for all equipment and software and any modifications to such equipment and software,” the filing said. “The recently established Federal Interagency Working Group will be able to meet with relevant stakeholders and ensure continued air safety and security after the Commission establishes allocation, service, and technical rules for the new service.” Last month, the FCC said it and the Department of Transportation agreed to establish a federal interagency working group to focus on issues including "safe and secure use of consumer communications onboard domestic commercial aviation."

An FCC public meeting for prospective Spectrum Access System administrators and environmental sensing capability operators in the 3.5 GHz band is now on for Feb. 29 at 9:30 a.m., an agency public notice said. The meeting was supposed to take place Tuesday but didn’t because of inclement weather in Washington, D.C. (see 1602160048).

Walmart made strides in moving commerce online, executives said on a fiscal Q4 earnings call (see here and here) Thursday, even as it said revenue and operating income fell in the quarter ended last month. Neil Ashe, CEO-global e-commerce, cited efforts to offer consumers a “seamless shopping experience” across Walmart's app, website and stores. The company’s new Pangaea technology platform powered the shopping experience online for the first time this holiday season, said Ashe. Walmart offered early access to the Black Friday circular on the mobile app for the first time during the 2015 runup to Christmas, and the app reached No. 1 at Apple’s App Store that day, Ashe said, an indication customers “are now comfortable buying on their phone.” More than half of online sales were completed on a mobile device on Thanksgiving, doubling mobile sales over 2014, Ashe said. It had “significant growth” in mobile sales for the rest of the peak holiday period, he said. Walmart began testing Walmart Pay in “a small group of stores” during the quarter, said Ashe. Initial shopper feedback said the experience was “simple and easy,” he said. Walmart’s entertainment category continued to have “soft” wireless sales and a “slower adoption of new technology in televisions,” said Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran. The company's stock closed down Thursday 3 percent to $64.12.

Apple recalled travelers' AC adapter kits for Mac computers and certain iOS devices after receiving 12 reports of wall plug adapters breaking and consumers receiving shocks when using them overseas, including three reports of consumers who were medically evaluated and released, said the company. The recall covers AC adapter kits and plug adapters for Australia/New Zealand/Argentina, Brazil, Continental Europe and Korea. The two-prong wall plug adapters can break and expose the metal portion of the adapter, posing a shock risk, said the company. No reports of incidents or injuries were reported by U.S. consumers, it said. Consumers should stop using the recalled wall plug adapters and contact Apple for free replacements. The recall includes 814,000 adapters (about $30), including 81,000 sold in Canada, sold at Apple stores and other electronics outlets from January 2003 through January 2015, said the company.

Technology will play a major role in Fossil turnaround efforts, after the company’s first earnings-per-share decline in a decade, said CEO Kosta Kartsotis on a Q4 earnings call. Adding chips to watches “in all brands” will provide additional functionality for differentiation and make the watch category more relevant to a demographic that hasn't worn watches because they grew up with smartphones, Kartsotis said. Also Tuesday, Chief Strategy Officer Greg McKelvey cited a “significant expansion" in the number of brands that will be launched across Fossil’s connected lineup of trackers, “smarter” watches with integrated technology and smartwatches. Last year, wearables generated $10 billion to $15 billion revenue industrywide. They're expected to generate $45 billion revenue by 2019, said Kartsotis.

Qualcomm, which announced LG as a launch partner for the Snapdragon Wear platform last week (see 1602120018), said Wednesday that original design manufacturers Borqs, Compal Electronics and Infomark began offering reference designs based on the Wear 2100 SoC (system on chip), some of which include 3G, 4G, smartwatches, Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. Qualcomm also said it’s the first company to support hardware-backed biometric fingerprint authentication for Tencent’s WeChat mobile payment service. And at next week's Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm will demo with Ericsson an LTE modem capable of gigabit data transfer speeds, 4-layer MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) in a smartphone and 5G connectivity, Qualcomm said. It will also demo Ultra HD Voice, along with IoT functions.

The GSM Association released a specification Thursday that allows consumers to remotely activate the SIM card embedded in a smartwatch, fitness band or tablet. The spec, the first from the GSMA’s industry-backed Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning initiative, will enable consumers to add devices to a mobile subscription and connect them securely to a mobile network, said GSMA. Mobile network operators, mobile device manufacturers and SIM vendors worked together on the spec that will allow consumers to activate the SIM embedded in a range of devices with a subscription from a mobile network operator of their choice, said GSMA. The initiative “does not aim to replace all SIM cards in the field” but is designed to help users connect multiple devices through the same subscription, it said. The spec will help mobile device manufacturers develop smaller, lighter mobile-connected wearables, it said. GSMA will also release a specification in June that will include remote provisioning for smartphones, it said.