Consumer intentions to buy smart watches soared in recent months, said a consumer research report released Wednesday by Futuresource Consulting. The firm canvassed a total of 8,000 consumers in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. in two "waves" -- once in May and again in October -- and found interest in buying a smart watch jumped 125 percent between the two waves, it said. Consumer intentions to buy fitness trackers jumped 50 percent, it said. However, interest in smart glasses and heart rate monitors has "stalled," it said. "The overall wearables market has seen significant growth so far in 2014, with Futuresource forecasting full year sales of more than 51 million units worldwide," the company said. "However, it's only just warming up, and wearables sales are expected to accelerate from 2015 as new brands enter the space." The "most marked change" since May is the strong growth in the number of iPhone owners intending to purchase wearable devices, Futuresource said. In terms of purchase intentions on wearables, "iPhone owners now lead the way in all categories," particularly in smart watches, which 17 percent of iPhone owners expressed an intent to purchase in the next 12 months, up from only 6 percent in May 2014, it said. "This increase coincides with September's announcement of the Apple Watch. As Apple customers are typically some of the earliest adopters of new technologies, their increasing engagement with the smart watch category is a strong positive for the Apple Watch release in early 2015."

The successful outcome of the ongoing AWS-3 spectrum auction will help mitigate the effects of the spectrum crunch caused by exploding consumer demand for mobile broadband, the Telecommunications Industry Association said Tuesday in a news release. It also will provide significant funding toward the construction of FirstNet, it said. The 1755-1780 MHz and 2155-2180 MHz bands are globally harmonized, “allowing manufacturers to build wireless devices at lower cost while also potentially permitting international roaming more easily,” it said. The bids have exceeded the reserve price (see 1411180061).

Mobile roaming rules work as intended, so it's unnecessary to change them as T-Mobile seeks, Verizon executives told an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. "Carriers are negotiating and entering into data roaming agreements," said Verizon in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 05-265. "In the three years since the FCC’s order, Verizon Wireless and its 59 roaming partners, including dozens of rural carriers, have executed 48 new or revised roaming agreements." There is no evidence that carriers won't keep negotiating data roaming deals with "commercially reasonable rates, terms and conditions," said Verizon. T-Mobile said last month it needed quick commission action on its request (see 1410290007). Verizon noted that the smaller carrier's request would change the rules to determine the commercial reasonableness of carrier fees by referring to what a company charges for retail roaming.

Staff of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute and CTC Technology and Energy, which did a study for OTI saying imposing net neutrality rules on wireless networks won't technically hurt carriers (see 1411130052), lobbied an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on this month's report. "The study demonstrates the fallacy of wireless industry claims that adherence to strong network neutrality protections for consumers and for edge providers is not technically feasible for mobile carrier networks," said an OTI ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. "Contrary to the claims of mobile carriers, the study demonstrates that LTE technology has the capability now to manage even situations of severe network congestion by treating like applications alike, without favoring carrier-sponsored or carrier-affiliated applications, content or services." An industry expert who has had concerns about Title II Communications Act reclassification of broadband service said CTC's report had technical problems. "It assumes essentially static conditions on the wireless network, and is completely devoid of a mechanism to provide feedback to the application as things change," wrote systems consultant Richard Bennett on Hightechforum.org's blog Tuesday. "Most mobile networks are moderately congested for hours at a time."

The ZigBee Alliance has unified its various wireless standards into a single spec that will be called ZigBee 3.0, the alliance said in an announcement Tuesday. ZigBee 3.0 "will provide interoperability among the widest range of smart devices," it said. It enables interoperability among devices for home automation, connected lighting, energy efficiency and other markets, "so more diverse, fully interoperable solutions can be delivered by product developers and service providers," it said. All device types, commands and functions defined in current ZigBee PRO-based standards are available to developers in the new standard, it said. ZigBee 3.0 is undergoing testing. A draft standard is available to alliance members and is expected to be ratified in Q4 2015, it said. ZigBee 3.0 demonstrations are planned for CES, it said.

The FCC should clarify that “called party” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act refers to the “intended recipient” of a call or text to a cellphone, Twitter said in a comment, supporting the Consumer Bankers Association petition for a declaratory ruling seeking clarification of the term. Twitter tries to identify reassigned cell numbers and remove them from its messaging platform, said the company’s filing in docket 02-278. The issue involves a spate of TCPA lawsuits about whether companies are liable for autodialing people who have not consented to getting the calls, but use a reassigned phone, in which the previous owner had given consent, said a CBA comment, also posted Tuesday. Twitter gathers information about reassigned numbers from wireless carriers and updates its records, but carriers provide it at varying and sporadic levels, Twitter said. It’s “not possible for businesses to learn comprehensively and in real-time whether a given cell phone number has been reassigned to another person,” Twitter said.

The auction for AWS-3 spectrum reached more than $14.1 billion in provisionally winning bids for the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1780/2155-2180 MHz bands by the end of round 14 Tuesday. The reserve prices are $580 million and about $10 billion, respectively, the FCC said on its website. That means that the reserve price now has been exceeded, a fact that also came up in congressional testimony Tuesday (see 1411180041). More than $1.91 billion was bid between rounds 13 and 14, the FCC said. There were 723 new bids for 1,303 licenses, it said. There was a provisionally winning bid of more than $991 million for the J block portion of spectrum in the New York City area, it said. The auction began Thursday.

Intel and fashion design company Opening Ceremony bowed Monday a high-end wearable — a designer smart bracelet — at a launch event in New York. The $495 bangle, due in early December in Barneys New York retail stores, does not operate with a smartphone, instead packing its own SIM card for use on the AT&T Wireless network. A two-year contract is included in the retail price, although the wireless fee beyond the contract period hasn’t been determined, executives from both companies said on a panel. The partnership with Opening Ceremony is part of Intel New Devices Group’s charter to contribute to the Internet of Things through “human-to-machines interactions,” Ayse Ildeniz, New Devices' general manager-strategy and business development, told us following the panel presentation. Citing the estimate many in the industry have forecast — 50 billion connected IoT devices by 2020 — Ildeniz said Intel plans to contribute to the IoT with intellectual property and innovation breakthroughs in how people “actually talk to that big world when it becomes a reality.” Wearables are a first step in reaching that goal, she said. Opening Ceremony is billing MICA (My Intelligent Communications Accessory) as a “luxury bracelet with embedded technology” that enables users to stay close to those important to them. The bracelet's features include the ability to link with Google Mail and to get Facebook and event notifications, Ildeniz said. Intel partnered with TomTom on the GPS side, which can give a quick read of time to destination. Through a partnership with Yelp, the bracelet can show nearby stores, restaurants and other points of interest. Opening Ceremony co-founder Humberto Leon noted the bracelet’s ability to “get macro” in telling how long it will take to arrive at a destination whether walking or riding in a vehicle. Users can “curate” a VIP contact list that filters notifications and text messages, and incoming alerts are indicated by a vibration, according to literature. Carol Lim, co-founder of Opening Ceremony, noted that the MICA is not intended to replace a smartphone. It’s not for people to check their Instagram accounts or to receive messages from everyone in their contact list, she said.

The FCC should consider the interests of small broadband providers as it works on net neutrality rules, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said in a meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler last week, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-28 Monday. Many WISPs have small staffs and cannot depend on USF funds for support, said the association. Additional disclosure and reporting requirements would create a substantial burden for WISPs under either Title II or Section 706 authority, WISPA said.

T-Mobile USA General Counsel Dave Miller pressed the FCC to act on the carrier’s May petition for a declaratory ruling containing guidance and “predictable” enforcement criteria for determining whether the terms of data roaming agreements meet the “commercially reasonable” standard adopted in a 2011 data roaming order (see 1408220055). Miller and others from T-Mobile met with FCC General Counsel Jonathan Sallet to make their case, said a filing posted Friday in docket 05-265. “Action is needed now, as T-Mobile and other carriers are negotiating new data roaming agreements -- many of which are replacing legacy agreements negotiated prior to the release of the Data Roaming Order.” T-Mobile isn’t seeking rate regulation, the carrier stressed. “Instead, it requests a ruling well within the Commission’s authority and which was, in fact, anticipated in the Data Roaming Order.”