The Iowa Utilities Board is concerned that without adequate safeguards smaller competitors will be unable to fairly compete for spectrum in the upcoming incentive auction, it said in an FCC filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-268. IUB backed the recommendation the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates made March 19. Increased concentration of low-band spectrum will mean fewer choices for consumers, IUB said. Having fewer choices puts rural markets in jeopardy and eventually harms consumers, the board said. It supports robust competition and encourages the commission to ensure that the smaller wireless competitors have a fair opportunity to acquire spectrum, the IUB said.

Launch of a new coalition to raise concerns about AT&T and Verizon "dominance" of low-band spectrum is nothing more than “old whine in new bottles,” AT&T Vice President Joan Marsh said Wednesday in a blog post. The SaveWirelessChoice coalition launched Monday (see 1504270037). “Based on the group’s opening advocacy salvo, I don’t expect much in the way of any new or insightful arguments,” Marsh said. “For example, they have revived the old myth that AT&T and Verizon were awarded half of their low band spectrum ‘for free’ -- a claim that has been so thoroughly refuted I’m surprised it’s still treated as news.” Marsh said that AT&T got almost 97 percent of its low-frequency spectrum through auction or a secondary market transaction. “AT&T’s ultimate predecessor, Southwestern Bell, was originally assigned Cellular B-block licenses in only a small number of license areas covering portions of only five states,” she said. The TV incentive auction "isn’t just about AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile or any one of the 100 other competitive carriers CCA represents," responded Rebecca Thompson, general counsel at the Competitive Carriers Association. "It’s about the American consumer, rural and urban alike, and preserving the integrity of a competitive mobile ecosystem. ... Competitive carriers must have meaningful opportunities to acquire spectrum in the upcoming auction, and our members are committed to ensuring this becomes a reality. AT&T is correct that this concept is not new or novel, but it’s the right public policy for consumers."

T-Mobile subscriber rolls continued to expand, with 1.8 million total net adds and 1.1 million branded, postpaid adds in its Q1, it said Tuesday. T-Mobile reported total revenue of $7.8 billion, up 13.1 percent from last year and slightly above consensus estimates. Loss of $63 million was also higher than expected. T-Mobile also said its postpaid churn rate was its lowest ever at 1.3 percent. The carrier’s 700 MHz A-block spectrum has now been deployed in 55 markets, it said. CEO John Legere said on T-Mobile’s financial call Tuesday: “I will carefully say that we are very confident that our postpaid results are the best in the industry by a long shot and that we have captured all of the industry postpaid phone growth in the first quarter.” But Legere also responded to criticism from some on social media that T-Mobile was throttling high-use subscribers. Legere said he's aware of criticism posted on Reddit. “I think what I'm watching happening is we must have some high-volume users who are in congested areas who are looking at their speeds and believing that they are being throttled and putting several items together on threads,” he said. “But I want to reiterate, we do not throttle 4G LTE unlimited customers.” Legere was asked about T-Mobile’s partnership with Google. Google announced last week its new MVNO would ride on T-Mobile’s and Sprint’s networks (see 1504220059). Legere said the company isn't going to unveil the terms of its agreement with Google. “The last thing in my mind right now is how to unhook Google,” he added. “I think this is one of the most exciting things that's going on.” Legere also said he expects the TV incentive auction to take place, as promised by the FCC, in early 2016.

The FCC appears increasingly likely to require Dish Network to pay out the extra $3.3 billion it saved during the AWS-3 auction by buying AWS-3 licenses using bidding credits through two designated entities (DEs), industry officials said. The Wireless Bureau has been looking closely at the bidding by SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless, the two DEs working with Dish in the auction, industry sources confirmed. Chairman Tom Wheeler repeatedly has said the FCC would look closely at bidding in the auction (see 1504090053). Other carriers have been at the commission laying out their versions of how the bidding by the DEs allegedly violated rules, most recently Verizon (see 1504270042). Dish has said repeatedly it did no wrong in the auction and its use of the DEs was in keeping with FCC rules. A wireless carrier official said it wouldn't appear to be “in Tom Wheeler’s DNA” to approve the AWS-3 licenses for Dish at the reduced prices. Industry sources said it's within the FCC's power to offer the licenses to Dish at full price. “It's a Solomonic decision by Chairman Wheeler,” said Roger Entner, analyst at Recon Analytics. “It makes the taxpayer whole and gives Dish, through its partners, quick access to the spectrum.” The FCC declined to comment.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau provided an update of its Public Safety Answering Point Text-to-911 Readiness and Certification Registry. The registry 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.

Roughly only two in every 10 Americans between 18 and 65 have any interest in owning an Apple Watch, said Horizon Media’s online survey of a sample of 3,000 people reflective of the U.S. population, the advertising agency said in a report. Earlier Horizon research found about half of smartphone users expressed interest in using Apple Pay when it launched, more than twice as many as are interested in Apple Watch now, it said. “The high level of negativity is a clear signal consumers are questioning the value of yet another connected device, even if it is from Apple." Apple Watch’s $349-and-up price tag was a deterrent for 73 percent of those surveyed, and 53 percent expressed displeasure at owning another connected device, said Horizon.

Qualcomm unleashed its first corporate image campaign Monday hoping to make IoT technology relevant and to "humanize" it to mainstream consumers, according to a report in Adweek. A 1:16 YouTube video montage shows a child with a smartphone with a female voiceover that asks, “When will everything work together?” The ad points out the threats and benefits of technology. While a distracted adult male driver is fiddling with the touch screen on his car's navigation unit, his autonomous car screeches to a halt when onboard sensors track a runner jogging on a crosswalk in front of the vehicle. “When we connected the phone to the Internet, the phone became smart,” the voice says, showing a smartphone taking the heart rate of a child in bed. The video montage shows a drone flying through a disaster scene, with the suggestion it will provide aid, and that’s followed by a charging table with resonant wireless charging such as the Qualcomm-backed Rezence system. “When we connect billions more things, life will be even smarter,” the voice tells us. The commercial ends with the Qualcomm tagline, “Why Wait,” with “#whywait to join the discussion.”

Public safety groups urged the FCC and Department of State to “intensify” efforts to implement a 2012 agreement with Mexico on the 800 MHz transition along the border. The 800 MHz rebanding is “essentially complete” everywhere else, but the border region has lagged behind, the groups said Monday. Mexican officials haven't directed Mexican 800 MHz operators in the border area to retune their radios, the groups said. Public safety operations along the border still face the “risk of harmful interference” due to the delay, the groups said. APCO signed the letter, as did the International Association of Chiefs of Police, International Association of Fire Chiefs, National Association of State EMS Officials and National Sheriffs’ Association.

The FCC made several changes to its rules to implement decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conferences held in 2007 and 2012. Typical of the changes, the Monday order revises its table of frequency allocations to allocate the 135.7-137.8 kHz band to the amateur service on a secondary basis, raise the secondary amateur service allocation in the 1900-2000 kHz band to primary status and allocate the 5091-5150 MHz band to the aeronautical mobile service on a primary basis “for Federal and non-Federal use, limited to aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT) for flight testing of aircraft and ‘Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System.’”

The FCC should still sell spectrum blocks, even if they're compromised by interference, in the TV incentive auction, T-Mobile representatives said in a meeting with members of the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force. “Spectrum with impairments of up to 50 percent nonetheless retains considerable value and should be auctioned. Impairments are best avoided, of course,” T-Mobile said. “But where impairments cannot be avoided, impairments should be placed in the uplink blocks, where solutions are easier to implement, rather than the downlink band, where solutions are more costly and time consuming.” T-Mobile also reiterated its position that the FCC should hold the incentive auction as scheduled in early 2016 and increase the quantity and quality of the reserve spectrum sold in the auction. Reserve spectrum is set aside for competitors to Verizon and AT&T. “Specifically, the Commission should increase the reserve to 50 percent of the available spectrum” and sell the least impaired blocks as reserve spectrum, T-Mobile said. The ex parte filing on the meeting was posted in docket 14-14 Monday.