Competitive Carriers Association representatives asked FCC officials in a meeting for simplified, streamlined systems for outage reporting. Of the current Disaster Information Reporting System and the challenges for smaller carriers, CCA officials said: “We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of providing consumers and state and local authorities accurate, timely information during times of emergency in order to improve overall situational awareness.” A filing on Tuesday's meeting was posted Friday in docket 13-239.

Sprint officials asked the FCC to revise the F(50,50) statistical measure that will be used as part of the TV incentive auction to predict interference from full-power and Class A DTV transmitters to wireless base stations. The measure bases interference on a standard whereby a signal will be strong enough to interfere in 50 percent of the locations 50 percent of the time. “Sprint demonstrated that the F(50,50) statistical measure severely underestimates the real-world levels of interference that wireless operators could experience, as compared to the more realistic F(50,10) measure of predicted interference,” the carrier said. It reported on a meeting with FCC officials on the topic, in a filing made Thursday in docket 12-268. The FCC should also use the F(50,10) statistical measure supported by Sprint and broadcasters, CTIA also told the FCC last week (see 1502270047).

Mobile operators and device manufacturers are teaming up to demonstrate the ability to interconnect IP messaging, calling and video across global networks, said a news release from Jibe Mobile Thursday. The demonstration at Mobile World Congress 2015, which begins Monday in Barcelona, will use Jibe’s IP communications cloud and RCS hub to show how carriers can launch and interconnect IP services around the world. Jibe said the carriers involved include Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Sprint and Vodafone.

Allied Market Research forecast the mobile security market will grow to $34.8 billion in 2020 sales, from $3.4 billion in 2013, it said in a news release Thursday. It said the bring-your-own-device trend is a major reason for the adoption of mobile security software.

The FCC Wireless Bureau gave LL License Holdings until Dec. 13, 2016, to meet tribal lands bidding credit (TLBC) construction deadlines for two 700 MHz A-block licenses in South Dakota, to provide wireless service to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Santee Sioux of Nebraska reservations. The company sought an extension in May 2012, one month before its three-year TLBC construction deadline was set to expire. “While the Commission’s stringent TLBC construction rules are designed to ensure deployment of service in a short length of time, we find that the public interest weighs in favor of making available to these tribal communities the same advanced, interoperable 700 MHz LTE service offerings being deployed elsewhere,” the bureau said in a letter released Thursday.

Texas Instruments introduced a new SimpleLink platform of ultra-low-power wireless microcontrollers for Internet of Things connectivity that helps OEM customers “go battery-less with energy harvesting or enjoy always-on, coin cell-powered operation for multiple years,” it said Wednesday. The platform is an “industry-first technology” that gives OEMs “the flexibility to develop products that support multiple wireless connectivity standards using a single-chip and identical RF design,” it said. The platform supports Bluetooth Smart, 6LoWPAN, Sub-1 GHz, ZigBee and ZigBee RF4CE, as well as “proprietary modes” up to 5 Mbps, it said. The CC2640 for Bluetooth Smart and the CC2630 for 6LoWPAN and ZigBee will be the first devices introduced on the new platform, TI said. “Leveraging this multi-standard support, customers can future-proof their designs and configure their chosen technology at the time of installation in the field.” Additional devices on the new platform will become available later in 2015, TI said.

Comments are now being accepted regarding the Federal Aviation Administration’s proposed rules on the operation of small unmanned aircraft systems, or drones, in the National Airspace System (see 1502160003). Comments are due April 24 and can be made on the regulations.gov website, after the FAA NPRM appeared in Monday's Federal Register.

A recent FCC order changing the definition of broadband from 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream to 25/3 Mbps ignores the big role played by wireless ISPs, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told the WISPAmerica 2015 conference in St. Louis Tuesday, according to a transcript of his remarks released Wednesday. “I’m sure it came as a shock to many providers that the high-quality broadband services that their consumers know and love no longer qualify as real broadband service,” he said. “One small provider I spoke with talked about how frustrating it is to predict just how far the FCC will move its broadband goal post from year to year.” O'Rielly dissented to the order changing the FCC’s definition of broadband, approved at last month’s FCC meeting (see 1501290043). O’Rielly said it was a more positive note that the FCC has made real progress on getting more spectrum in play. “But we cannot rest on our laurels, more needs to be done,” he said. The explosion in wireless data “will require additional spectrum resources” beyond what is in the pipeline, he said. “Locating, repurposing and clearing spectrum takes time, so a long-term strategy is needed.”

Allowing unlicensed operations to use the TV guard bands after the TV incentive auction, as proposed by the FCC, is a doubly bad idea, Brattle said in a report filed Wednesday and paid for by Qualcomm. The policy will be ineffective because operations in the guard bands won’t attract investment, Brattle said. “Their limited bandwidth makes the 600 MHz guard bands inferior to the unlicensed bands at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for Wi-Fi-type applications, and the necessarily limited transmit power precludes use of 600 MHz unlicensed devices altogether for long-range applications such as rural broadband.” All use of the spectrum would yield is “Wi-Fi on tranquilizers,” the report said. The potential interference will also mean carriers are less likely to buy spectrum in the incentive auction, Brattle said. “Our analysis of an LTE network in a band similar to 600 MHz shows that a 5 percent loss of capacity due to interference from unlicensed operations in the guard bands will lower the value of the affected spectrum by 9 percent; a 20 percent loss of capacity will lower its value by 43 percent; and a 35 percent loss of capacity will eliminate most (93 percent) of its value.” Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at New America’s Open Technology Institute, told us he's not surprised by the report because Qualcomm has long opposed unlicensed use of TV spectrum, including the TV white spaces. "It simply reemphasizes our concern that Qualcomm is attempting to kill Wi-Fi in everything but the 2.4 GHz band," said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld.

SIM card vendor Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) jumped Tuesday to address a widely circulated article from The Intercept last week reporting that in 2010 and 2011, American and British spies “hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world” -- G&D competitor Gemalto -- “stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe.” That hack, which the report said was not limited to Gemalto (see 1502200039), “gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.” Gemalto issued a statement Monday saying it was studying the matter and would reveal the results of its investigation in a news conference Wednesday. In its news release Tuesday, G&D, which supplies SIM cards to more than 350 mobile network operators worldwide, said it has played an “important role” in the development of SIM card security standards for two decades. “The SIM card is so secure that in the case revealed recently, even intelligence services preferred to steal the key rather than attack the SIM card,” G&D said. The secure authentication of the mobile phone user on the mobile network is the main function of the SIM card, it said, saying G&D employs “the highest security procedures and processes.” The company “is taking the targeted attacks by intelligence services which were reported in the last few days very seriously, however,” it said. “Until now G&D has no knowledge that SIM card keys were stolen,” Stefan Auerbach, G&D’s head-mobile security business unit, said. “Immediately after the attacks were brought to light we did, however, introduce additional measures to review the established security processes together with our customers.”