The Competitive Carriers Association said it's partnering with consulting firm 151 Advisors to bring an IoT Connection Zone to CCA’s Mobile Carriers Show, April 13-15 in Nashville. “With a dedicated location in the exhibit hall, the IoT Connection Zone will provide an ideal meeting place for carriers and vendors to discuss all things IoT,” said CCA President Steve Berry in a news release.
The Wireless Broadband Alliance unveiled its Hope for Connectivity charter, which defines the focus of the first World Wi-Fi Day. The charter "directs the attention of cities, government bodies, fixed and mobile operators, technology vendors and Internet giants towards the critical influence and success of wireless connectivity in bridging the digital divide,” the alliance said Wednesday. “It calls on governments, the industry and the public to recognize and celebrate the important role of Wi-Fi in socioeconomic development and to advance and accelerate affordable connectivity for the unconnected around the world.” World Wi-Fi Day is scheduled for June 20. AT&T, Boingo Wireless, BT, China Telecom, Cisco, Google, Nokia, Intel, Liberty Global, Orange, Ruckus, Tata Teleservices and the Wi-Fi Alliance are among the groups and companies supporting the charter, the alliance said in a news release. Hope is an acronym for help, offer, promote and engage, it said.
AT&T and Verizon appear to be neck-and-neck in a fight to become FirstNet’s lead partner, analyst Damon Verial said Wednesday in a report on financial website Seeking Alpha. “The importance of winning the FirstNet bid cannot be overstated for the stocks of these companies,” Verial wrote. “Becoming the FirstNet provider will give the winner a de facto monopoly on the national wireless network employed by the federal and state governments. This essentially guarantees the continued existence of the winner, protecting it from a possible bankruptcy (e.g., as a result of competition or disruptive technology to the wireless market) and should therefore change the lower bound valuation of the stock price (i.e., liquidation will not be possible as it would imply the destruction of a government system).” Verial also said the contract comes with many strings attached. The requirements are complex, he said. “Not only does it ask the wireless carrier to connect the entire country but it also requests ‘creativity’ in the bid.” Other industry observers see AT&T as more likely to emerge with the FirstNet contract (see 1601220053).
The FCC should move quickly to get spectrum controlled by Ligado Networks, formerly LightSquared, in play for wireless broadband, Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard said in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 12-340. Lenard said the need for more spectrum for mobile broadband is well established and was a central part of the FCC 2010 National Broadband Plan. The Ligado spectrum is “low-hanging fruit,” he said. “The Commission should move this process forward by issuing a notice requesting public comment on Ligado’s December 31, 2015 filings concerning license modifications and reallocation in mid-band spectrum,” Lenard wrote. “By incorporating limits on Ligado’s operations that were agreed to by major GPS manufacturers, this proposal appears to satisfy the concerns of various stakeholders about adjacent band interference issues.”
Replies on the spectrum frontier proceeding, which were due at the FCC Feb. 23, are now due Feb. 26, the Office of Engineering and Technology and Wireless Bureau said Wednesday in a public notice. Several parties, including the Satellite Industry Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association, asked for a delay, the PN noted. “Petitioners assert that additional time is needed to respond to detailed licensing proposals and technical information addressing a number of different frequency bands raised by commenters in the record,” it said. “Petitioners also cite inclement weather, which caused Federal Government offices to be closed for several days, resulting in an extension of the comment deadline.”
Sprint has different messages for regulators and for Wall Street on special access regulation, the Internet Innovation Alliance said in a report posted Wednesday. “Sprint tells Washington regulators it needs regulated access to business data lines,” the group said, citing various FCC filings. “Yet, Sprint simultaneously boasts to Wall Street of cost savings achieved by NOT relying on FCC-mandated business data circuits.” As one example, IIA cited a recent Sprint SEC filing. “As expected, our network modernization program has allowed us to realize financial benefit to the Company through reduced network maintenance and operating costs, capital efficiencies, reduced energy costs, lower roaming expenses and backhaul savings,” the filing said. Sprint has been a leading party seeking FCC action in curbing special access rates (see 1601270072). "There is nothing inconsistent in saying that Sprint is taking all actions possible to reduce its spend on backhaul circuits and stating that incumbents are charging too much for the services they provide," a Sprint spokesman said. "In fact, Sprint is taking the actions it is on backhaul precisely because of the high costs imposed by the incumbents."
LG announced the Stylus 2, the follow-up to the Stylus G4 smartphone, before its debut at Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona. The 5.7-inch Stylus 2, with an HD in-cell touch screen, comes with a thinner "nanocoated" pen tip with the feel of a standard pen to provide more accuracy for note-taking and drawing, said the company.
The FCC postponed a session scheduled for Tuesday bringing together prospective Spectrum Access System administrators and environmental sensing capability operators who are using the 3.5 GHz band. The postponement was necessary because of the weather-related delayed opening of the federal government Tuesday, an FCC official said. FCC staff promised in an earlier notice to “address questions related to the SAS or ESC requirements or the process for reviewing proposals.”
Last month’s CES was a good opportunity to see the future of public safety communications, said a Tuesday FirstNet blog post. FirstNet staff used CES as a “a sneak peek to what may be possible with the nationwide public safety broadband network,” especially since devices usually start in the consumer space, wrote Barry Leitch of the FirstNet Chief Technology Officer Devices Group. Smartphones offering “voice, messaging and data access to public safety personnel,” laptops and tablets that can be used as mobile data terminals and vehicle-mounted wireless routers were the types of devices scoped by FirstNet staff, Leitch wrote. “At CES, we also looked to when new technology solutions for public safety may spur innovation in the commercial sector,” he said. “Keynote presentations during the show covered topics including the Internet of Things, commercial video streaming service, and cognitive learning systems working with IOT and cloud services.”
Marcus Spectrum Solutions filed in support of a 2013 IEEE-USA petition seeking a declaratory ruling by the FCC that technology above 95 GHz is presumptively “new technology” in the context of Section 7 of the Communications Act. Marcus offered a list of U.S. companies active in technologies above 95 GHz, which can't sell products for licensed or unlicensed use due to the lack of radio service rules above that frequency. “These US firms compete with overseas firms … that exist in very different regulatory environments,” Marcus said. “While clearly addressing these legal ambiguities about the legality of the products of the above US firms is not a high priority for the FCC staff, future capital formation for such firms as well as possible mergers might be delayed or threatened by routine ‘due diligence’ that discovers these ambiguities.” Other nations take the spectrum seriously, Marcus said. It pointed to a Japanese 120 GHz system used at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and a Singapore government-funded program at 135 GHz. “The US government does not target communications technologies for government-supported R&D even though our national competitors do,” the firm said. “Our free enterprise system is generally more effective. But it is not effective if firms seeking to develop new technologies subject to nonroutine approvals, e.g. technology above 95 GHz, cannot show investors a transparent regulatory system that will consider requests for spectrum access on their merits and in a timely way.” The filing was posted Tuesday in docket 13-259.