The FCC is scheduled to publish a notice in the Federal Register Thursday offering details on the partial economic area (PEA) licenses to be sold by the agency in the TV incentive auction (http://bit.ly/1rN0ryc). The notice provides a list of the 416 PEAs with their corresponding economic area and a list of counties in each PEA. The license size is a new one for the FCC. Some of the PEAs are large, with PEA 1 including New York City and covering a population of 25.2 million.
U.S. wireless development could be “constrained and America’s mobile broadband leadership put at risk” over the next 10 years if carriers don’t have access to spectrum “of sufficient quantity or quality,” says a paper posted by consulting firm Deloitte Wednesday. “A decline in leadership would not only hurt the U.S. mobile industry and the U.S. mobile ecosystem, but could create a chilling effect on the broader U.S. economy, which increasingly relies on mobile services for both consumer and business use,” the paper argues (http://bit.ly/1w6TMxd). The paper says the U.S. is the world’s leader in deployment of LTE. U.S. companies also provide 96 percent of smartphone operating systems worldwide and 17 percent of smartphones. “It is clear that the mobile broadband industry is having favorable effects on America’s economy,” Deloitte said. “What is less clear is whether the United States is maintaining a leadership position in the face of global competition and how it may protect or strengthen its position for the coming decade.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau Wednesday sided with Geodesic Networks in a dispute with Auburn Data Systems over private operational fixed service (POFS) microwave point-to-point licenses at Naperville and Darien, both in Illinois. The bureau denied Auburn’s request that it reconsider grant of the licenses to Geodesic. Auburn had made a mutually exclusive application for the licenses. “We conclude that the Bureau did not prematurely grant Geodesic’s applications,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1oDIMkX). “Geodesic acceptably completed frequency coordination of its proposed operations, and it was not required to withdraw its applications once Auburn objected after the date Geodesic requested a response.”
T-Mobile wants to sell senior notes due in 2023 and 2025 to raise money, including funds for November’s AWS-3 auction, said a prospectus filed Wednesday by the carrier at the SEC (http://1.usa.gov/1A6W8fO). “We intend to participate in the FCC’s upcoming auction of AWS-3 spectrum, and if we are successful in the auction process, we anticipate that a portion of the net proceeds of this offering would be used to acquire such spectrum.” The filing doesn’t say how much T-Mobile hopes to raise through the offering.
The U.S. experience demonstrates that spectrum auctions, when done right, are a successful mechanism for maximizing the use of spectrum, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a speech Monday to the IX International Regulatory Workshop in Cartagena De Indias, Colombia. Pai released his written remarks Tuesday (http://bit.ly/W7gxUx). “Auctions are more successful when they are kept simple, transparent, and market-driven,” he said. “That means setting clear rules in advance and sticking with them. That means avoiding onerous conditions on particular spectrum. That means giving everyone a fair opportunity to bid. These are the best ways to promote network construction, to raise money for the treasury, and to give consumers the benefits of innovative new services.” Pai also said flexible use policies and a robust secondary market have been critical to the rollout of wireless. The FCC is committed to reviewing deals in the transfer of spectrum from one company to another within 180 days of applications being filed, he said. “This is a good thing. By providing procedural certainty, the FCC has enabled spectrum to flow more freely to its highest value use.” The FCC also allows licensees to sell off part of their holdings, Pai noted. “We have found that these secondary market policies have encouraged spectrum efficiency and reduced transaction costs,” he said. “Indeed, there have been thousands of secondary-market transactions involving mobile broadband licenses over the past several years.” The FCC has also authorized local experiments to examine the aftereffects of the IP transition, he noted. “We are going to see what happens when aging infrastructure is turned off,” he said. “These tests will give us valuable data. And we will then use that data to make a successful national transition to all-IP networks. Once that happens, companies will be able to focus their investments exclusively on high-speed networks.”
The FCC’s former defaulter rule waiver (CD Sept 2 p1) toughens slightly changes originally proposed by wireless carrier associations. The text was released after our deadline (http://bit.ly/1q8rS36). The waiver applies only to the AWS-3 auction. It provides a waiver only for cases when the notice of the final payment deadline or delinquency was received more than seven years before the AWS-3 short-form application deadline and the amount of the default or delinquency falls below $100,000. The waiver also requires that the default or delinquency was paid within two quarters after receiving the notice of the final payment deadline or delinquency and that it was the subject of a legal or arbitration proceeding “cured upon resolution of the proceeding.”
ZENS added the PuK wireless charger, a Qi-based inductive charger designed to be built into furniture for living and working environments. Applications include desks, counters and bedside tables for use in offices, hotels, restaurants, kitchens and homes worldwide, the company said. Installations can be built-on or built-in to existing or new furniture, the company said. The ZENS PuK has seven induction coils that continually detect a device’s signal so that a charging phone doesn’t have to be placed in a precise location but can be “freely positioned,” ZENS said. Foreign Object Detection software automatically shuts down the charging process if metal comes between the Qi phone and the charger, ZENS said, preventing objects from absorbing energy from the wireless power supply field and creating a heat hazard.
Roughly 30 percent of smart home owners experience monthly glitches with core functions of connected devices, said research presented by Parks Associates in a recent webinar on the impact of the Internet of Things on support services. Examples of snags homeowners have encountered with smart home products include timing issues with automated lighting control, where lights didn’t come on at the programmed times, thermostats that didn’t keep temperatures to programmed levels, and door locks that didn’t perform as expected, said analyst Patrice Samuels. She called the findings “disconcerting” to smart home owners. “Because these devices are in the earlier stages, they're more susceptible to functional glitches,” Samuels said. But at such an early stage of the category’s development, “you really don’t want anything to go wrong in the devices that are controlling your home,” she said. Support of smart home devices requires a “greater sense of urgency,” she said. Support will be critical to the advancement of the smart home to prevent technology snafus from becoming “barriers to adoption” and the growth of the IoT, Samuels said. Connected entertainment products are more technologically mature, on the other hand, and problems associated with using Blu-ray players, smart TVs, streaming media players and gaming consoles are “less the result of glitches” and more related to quality concerns that can relate to bandwidth, Samuels said. With streaming media players, consumers may complain about sound or picture quality versus being able to play a program. Consumption on streaming media devices and smart TVs has increased “dramatically” over the past year, while consumption on gaming consoles has gone up “pretty steadily” over the past three to four years, said Samuels. The average broadband household owns an average of seven connectable devices, and more consumers are now connecting devices such as game consoles and Blu-ray players to the Internet versus only using their core functions. Demand will continue to increase with IoT growth, said Samuels.
Sensorstream, which calls itself a “struggling” San Francisco-based startup, sees a $1 trillion opportunity in smart watches and their ecosystem of components, its founder, Tom Rapko, told us. Sensorstream just landed a design patent from the Patent and Trademark Office for a circular smart watch case that’s buttonless with interior threading “to support an upgradable modular electronics package,” and the company is looking for partners, Rapko said. “The wearables business is going to go the way of a garage startup” reminiscent of Apple’s founding, Rapko said. “Even though the Valley is hugely software-centric, I think there’s a huge opportunity in the hardware space for wearables, and in particular, smart watches,” he said of developer work currently happening in the Silicon Valley on behalf of wearables. Rapko thinks smart watches will “drive disruptive innovations in social networking, entertainment and commerce,” he said. Sensorstream’s smart watch case is called Pi, the company said. It differs from traditional watch cases in that it’s devoid of all external buttons, to protect it from the elements, it said. The threaded design on its interior promotes adaptability to modular electronics that can be fitted in and enhances “the ergonomic contours of the smart watch to hug the wearer’s wrist for enhanced stability,” it said. Smart watches have the “potential to rival” or exceed the most successful consumer electronics “ever released” in terms of fast adoption rates, Rapko said. Form factors “will help shape consumer adoption of smart watches,” he said. “Aesthetically, we feel a circular display is superior to the dreary square. Frankly, the end game is fusing the look and feel of a Swiss luxury watch with the core functionality of a smart phone.”
Sprint launched another version of the HTC One Friday. The HTC One E8, available in white or gray, is offered with Sprint Easy Pay, which allows qualified customers to buy the phone for $0 down with 24 monthly payments of $20.84. Features include Android 4.4.2, a 5-inch display, 2.3 GHz processor, 13-megapixel front and 5-megapixel rear cameras, Wi-Fi Calling and HD Voice. The phone can be a 3G/4G hotspot, Sprint said.