FirstNet plans its second “Industry Day” on Aug. 27, it said. The session will be 1-4 p.m. at FirstNet headquarters in Reston, Virginia, and will be webcast, FirstNet said. FirstNet had its first industry day in May (see 1505140051). “We are committed to sharing as much information as possible on our acquisition approach to ensure industry and public safety are prepared for the upcoming Request for Proposals later this year, and this Industry Day is another opportunity for us to do so,” said FirstNet acting Executive Director TJ Kennedy.

Without the proper reserve spectrum trigger, AT&T and Verizon could easily “foreclose” the ability of competitive carriers to buy licenses in the TV incentive auction, T-Mobile warned in a letter to the FCC. “AT&T and Verizon will benefit financially if they can delay the spectrum-reserve trigger,” T-Mobile said. “Bidding on all blocks, including the reserve blocks, will continue to increase after the spectrum-reserve trigger is met so long as demand exceeds supply.” If the reserve “successfully encourages AT&T and Verizon to bid only fair market value as opposed to the foreclosure value they would gain from excluding competitors from acquiring the low- band spectrum necessary for competition, no differential between reserve and non-reserve prices should exist at all.” Verizon made a filing of its own Thursday, slamming T-Mobile's pursuit of a revised trigger. The trigger T-Mobile wants would "jeopardize the auction, by shielding bidders for set-aside spectrum from fully competitive bidding before the auction raises enough money to cover all expenses," Verizon said. "It would tilt the auction rules further in their favor. And by triggering the set aside when prices reach $2.00 in the largest 40 markets, an arbitrary figure that is not grounded in market data, the proposal would allow T-Mobile and others to win spectrum at even lower prices." Both filings were in docket 14-252.

The administration is very focused on making more spectrum available for wireless broadband, but government agencies still have needs of their own, NTIA Associate Administrator Office of Spectrum Management Paige Atkins said Thursday in a blog post. Based on the latest numbers, only 17 percent of spectrum in the 225 MHz to 3.7 GHz range is allocated for exclusive federal use, compared with 31 percent for “exclusive non-federal use” and 52 percent for shared use, Atkins wrote. “At the same time, however, the federal government’s need for spectrum to provide mission-critical services also is increasing,” she said. “Spectrum is essential to an extraordinarily broad range of other federal agency missions from the Federal Aviation Administration’s management of air traffic; to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s use of telepresence technology on its ocean exploration ship to reach on-shore personnel any time of day; to NASA’s use of spectrum for the satellites that are sending back amazing pictures of Pluto from its New Horizons spacecraft. In short, without adequate access to spectrum, many government activities that benefit every citizen would not be possible.” CTIA appreciates NTIA’s “continued dedication and willingness” to work with industry on spectrum, said CTIA Executive Vice President Brad Gillen. “As Americans, including government agencies, continue to adopt a mobile-first lifestyle, it’s important that spectrum is used as efficiently and effectively as possible,” he said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau released another update of its Public Safety Answering Point Text-to-911 Readiness and Certification Registry. It lists PSAPs that are ready to receive text-to-911 messages and provides notice to carriers and other providers of interconnected text messaging services of the PSAP’s date of readiness. Similar notices won't be released, the bureau said. "The Bureau will no longer announce updates to the Text-to-911 Registry by periodic Public Notice, but will continue to update the Text-to-911 Registry on a regular basis," it said. "The updated Registry will be available on-line and will indicate the date of the most recent update, which will serve as the date of notification to covered text providers for PSAPs listed in the update."

Android devices running versions 2.2 through 5.1.1_r4 contain vulnerabilities in the Stagefright media playback engine that may allow an attacker to access multimedia files or potentially take control of a vulnerable device, said an alert from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team Tuesday. Users and administrators are encouraged to review the Vulnerability Note for more information, the alert said. Affected Android users should contact their wireless carrier or device manufacturer for a software update, it said.

Verizon is helping utilities convert more of the nation’s 147 million electric meters into smart meters using technology that takes advantage of Verizon’s LTE network and the IoT, the company said Wednesday on its policy blog. Verizon said its Grid Wide Utility Solutions system allows electric utilities to upgrade without huge capital investments. “Verizon’s Grid Wide system allows companies to consume services as they need them by offering energy management solutions as-a-service,” the carrier said. “Certified smart meters installed at the customer’s home report individual power outages by sending a notice to the Grid Wide platform over Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Utilities then know exactly where the outage occurred, if it affects more than one person, how many crews they need to send out, and where to send them.” Utilities also can use the system to remotely connect and disconnect services without having to send out a truck and a crew to make the change manually, Verizon said. Only about a third of U.S. meters today are smart meters, Verizon said.

One year ago Wednesday, FirstNet held its initial state consultation meeting in Maryland, said Dave Buchanan, FirstNet director-state consultation, Wednesday in a blog post. Since then, FirstNet has held consultation meetings with 43 states and territories, including a meeting in California this week, “to discuss in detail their specific requirements for the network,” Buchanan said. More than 2,600 government officials have attended the meetings, he said. “FirstNet has gained a better understanding about what it will take to deploy the network in the states and territories from these meetings,” he wrote. “We have learned a great deal about the use of mobile broadband, coverage challenges, and emergency communications usage in each state and territory. We have also heard from small rural agencies and large urban departments about the benefits FirstNet will bring to public safety, including improved situational awareness at planned events and emergency response incidents, more efficient and effective response operations, and improved first responder safety.”

The FCC needs to ensure that three channels are available for unlicensed use in every U.S. market and the agency should designate additional channels, including Channel 37, for unlicensed use, Google executives said in a series of meetings at the FCC. Alan Norman, Google principal-access strategy team and General Counsel Austin Schlick were among those who met with the FCC officials, Google said in a filing in docket 15-146. The officials also said new data shows a 40 mW white spaces device can safely operate in the duplex gap between carrier operations without causing interference to LTE in adjacent spectrum. "Common use cases add significant shadowing losses to unlicensed device signal propagation, as compared [with] idealized free space conditions,” Google said. Also, out-of-band emissions from an unlicensed white spaces device “do not affect LTE operations,” the company said. Google also discussed the possible benefits of establishing a 1 MHz separation between unlicensed channels in the duplex gap.

T-Mobile fired back at a filing by Verizon asking the FCC to ignore new data on revisions to the reserve spectrum trigger for the TV incentive auction (see 1507280049). The data had been filed by T-Mobile and Sprint and was largely redacted. “Verizon was neither able to produce outside counsel to review the information as part of standard procedure, nor able to make employees available for review who weren't working on the incentive auction,” a T-Mobile spokesman said. “Their comments are self-serving at best.” T-Mobile and Sprint made a filing at the FCC Wednesday saying they had offered Verizon a chance to examine the documents. "Despite having a market capitalization of more than $186 billion and approximately 177,000 employees, Verizon apparently could not find external counsel, a consultant or a single internal staff member to review the Confidential Information," the carriers said. “More long letters from T-Mobile can’t obscure the fact that it continues to press the FCC to change the auction orders to enable it to get more spectrum free from competitive bidding and at even more discounted prices," a Verizon spokesman said in response. "T-Mobile filed pages of detailed predictions as to what it thinks will happen in the upcoming auction, used those predictions to argue for preferential rules, then refused to provide those same predictions on the record. T-Mobile’s attempt to inject allegedly ‘confidential’ data into the record at the 11th hour risks creating even further issues for the FCC as it attempts to close this proceeding.”

A vulnerability affecting the Uconnect software in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) that may have allowed an unauthorized user to take remote control of an affected vehicle requires access to Sprint’s cellular network, as Sprint connects FCA vehicles to the Internet, a U.S. Cyber Emergency Readiness Team (U.S.-CERT) alert said Monday. Sprint blocked the port used for attacks, it said, and FCA and the National Transportation Safety Administration initiated a safety recall for all potentially affected Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram models, the alert said. Uconnect users are encouraged to review the recall announcement and apply the software update, it said.