FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told first responders at an APCO conference Thursday that since FirstNet funding is tied to broadcasters’ willingness to sell their licenses in the TV incentive auction, getting the rules right for the auction should also be critical to them. “In order to have a successful incentive auction that raises the funds FirstNet needs, both broadcasters and wireless carriers must participate,” Pai said in prepared remarks (http://fcc.us/1lnTUpg). “It may take only two to tango, but this is more like Cirque du Soleil. To get broadcasters to the table, we need to turn the abstract concept of an incentive into the concrete reality of cash. That means letting broadcasters in the United States know -- sooner rather than later -- just how much they could receive for participating in the incentive auction. That also means letting the auction process, not government fiat, determine the prices paid to broadcasters for their spectrum.” The IP transition also has big implications for public safety and the development of a next-generation 911 network, Pai said. “Few people realize just how tied the legacy 911 system is to copper wires, landline phones and 1970s technology,” he said. “In short, the legacy architecture of the system means that all too many 911 calls are delayed, dropped, or lost altogether. I am hopeful that NG911’s IP-based architecture will change all that.” Pai spoke at APCO’s Emerging Technology Forum in Orlando.

Android will remain the top smartphone operating system and iOS second through 2018, IDC projected Wednesday. About 950.5 million Android smartphones will ship globally this year, for a 78.9 percent market share, the research company predicted. Android’s smartphone shipments will grow to 1.3 billion in 2018, but its share will dip to 76 percent, IDC projected. Shipments for iOS will increase from 179.9 million to 249.6 million during the same time frame, but the iOS share will dip from 14.9 percent to 14.4 percent, IDC estimated. Global smartphone shipments across all platforms will slow to 8.3 percent annual growth in 2017 and 6.2 percent in 2018, IDC predicted. Annual smartphone shipment volume in 2013 passed 1 billion units for the first time, a 39.2 percent growth over 2012, it said. But in the coming year, IDC expects mature markets including North America and Europe will drop to single-digit growth and Japan might “contract slightly,” it said. Despite the high growth expected in many emerging markets, 2014 will be the year smartphone growth falls more significantly than ever before, it said. Shipment volume is expected to increase to 1.2 billion this year, growth of 19.3 percent from 2013, it said. More than 200 million smartphones are in active use in North America, said Ryan Reith, IDC program director-Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, in a news release. But this year will be an “enormous transition year” for the smartphone market, he said. “New markets for growth bring different rules to play by and ‘premium’ will not be a major factor in the regions driving overall market growth,” he said. As mature markets become “saturated and worldwide growth slows, service providers and device manufacturers are seeking opportunities to move hardware wherever they can,” said IDC. The result will be “rapidly declining price points, creating challenging environments in which to turn a profit,” it said. The global smartphone average selling price (ASP) was $335 in 2013, and that’s expected to drop to $260 by 2018, it said. To reach the “untapped demand within emerging markets, carriers and OEMs will need to work together to bring prices down,” said Ramon Llamas, IDC research manager-mobile phone. Last year, 322.5 million smartphone units shipped at under $150 and that number will continue to grow, he said. Several smartphone announcements already have targeted that price level this year, with some as low as $25, he said. IOS will have the highest ASPs among the leading platforms through 2018, IDC predicted. Apple has “maintained a tight focus on the high end of the market with its most current devices,” a trend IDC expects will continue but “could keep iOS from realizing greater volumes within emerging markets,” said the research company. But sales in mature markets will “offset much of the difference,” it said. Windows Phone is expected to grow the fastest among the leading smartphone operating systems through 2018, helped by nine new Windows Phone partners, said IDC. Most of the new vendors come from emerging markets, it said. Windows Phone’s shipments will grow from 47 million to 121.8 million and its share will grow from 3.9 percent to 7 percent between this year and 2018, predicted IDC. BlackBerry’s higher-than-average prices “could inhibit its growth potential,” said IDC, predicting shipments will tumble from 11.9 million to 5.3 million with that operating system’s share slipping from 1 percent to 0.3 percent.

While there are competing analyses from Globalstar and NCTA, “there is no serious dispute that harmful interference to Globalstar will occur at high usage levels” of outdoor unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII) devices, Globalstar said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-49 (http://bit.ly/1ewRfBr). At such high usage levels, “outdoor U-NII-1 operations will cause harmful interference by reducing capacity on Globalstar’s network,” it said. The FCC can’t rush ahead with its proposed rule changes without additional steps determining thresholds for and risks of harmful interference with more certainty, it said. The filing recounts details of a meeting with staff from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and Jonathan Sallet, acting FCC general counsel. Globalstar also filed a white paper explaining its position that the commission can’t legally permit the unlimited deployment of outdoor unlicensed devices in the U-NII-1 band, it said. The mobile satellite services company said it showed that unrestricted outdoor operations in the U-NII-1 band “would threaten substantial harmful interference to Globalstar’s feeder uplink operations at 5.096-5.25 GHz,” the white paper said (http://bit.ly/1bMuPBo). Although the FCC originally adopted the restriction on outdoor use at a time when unlicensed use was in its infancy, “today it is beyond reasonable dispute that removing that restriction will lead to massive, imminent outdoor use of the U-NII-1 band,” it said. A spectrum licensee has vested property and reliance interests that further ensure protection from harmful interference, it said. “Both the commission and the courts have also recognized that these reliance interests must be given careful consideration before changing rules."

The FCC released a speed test for iPhones available in the iTunes App Store, said an agency news release (http://bit.ly/1fIf5yL). The commission released an app for Android phones in November. “Unlike the Android app, the iOS app cannot run periodically in the background,” the FCC said. “However, volunteers can test their cellular and Wi-Fi network performance manually to receive an on-demand view of upload and download speed, latency, and packet loss. No personal or uniquely identifiable information is collected. The data collected by the app is useful in informing users regarding their own performance and also supports the Commission’s open broadband data program, contributing to the information made freely available to the public on the nation’s mobile broadband performance in reports, maps, datasets and other forms.”

Public Knowledge released a video designed to explain to the public the importance of unlicensed spectrum in daily life, from garage door openers to baby monitors to Wi-Fi. But the group warned that unlicensed spectrum is threatened by the TV incentive auction. “The FCC has historically reserved a small amount of shared unlicensed spectrum, while auctioning off the rest for privately licensed use,” PK said. “Now we're faced with an upcoming auction in early 2015 and the FCC hopes to reclaim the TV white spaces and sell them to private telecom companies. Tell the FCC to protect our airwaves during the upcoming spectrum auction and save some spectrum for the public good."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “hit the nail on the head” in comments on the importance of infrastructure deployment at the GSMA Mobile World Congress, said PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein Wednesday. “PCIA has long promoted just the policies the Chairman suggested, to enable wireless networks to be built quickly, efficiently and cost effectively,” Adelstein said in a news release. “He has teed these issues up, and his statement indicates he is prepared to take decisive action. As Chairman Wheeler put so succinctly, ‘We can’t have high-speed broadband without high-speed deployment.’ PCIA couldn’t agree more, and we look forward to working with him and the entire Commission to ensure U.S. wireless networks can continue to support … all of the growing needs of consumers, businesses, public safety, schools, hospitals and others who rely on wireless broadband.” Adelstein is a former FCC commissioner.

Auctions work best and raise the most when restrictions aren’t placed on who can bid, said the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy in a white paper released Tuesday. “Even when all firms enjoy foreclosure value, and even in settings where some firms serve far more retail customers than other firms, unfettered auctions can maximize economic welfare,” the paper said (http://bit.ly/1cMbPB6). “When competitors perceive the same marginal value of spectrum, unfettered auctions can be relied upon to (i.e., they always) generate the welfare-maximizing allocation of inputs.” Spectrum auctions work because “in contrast to bureaucratic allocation methods, well-designed auctions typically ensure that the input is allocated to the users who value that input most highly,” the center said. The center is supported in part by AT&T and the Verizon Foundation. The two major carriers strongly oppose spectrum aggregation limits in the upcoming TV incentive and AWS-3 auctions.

The International Trade Commission is ending an investigation into patent infringement by imported wireless electronic devices, with a finding of no violation, said the ITC in the Federal Register Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1ljM0gH). Technology Products Ltd. and Phoenix Digital Solutions had in 2012 requested the ITC ban allegedly infringing imports of tablets, mobile phones and similar devices from a litany of companies including Barnes & Noble, Garmin, HTC, Huawei, LG, Nintendo, Novatel, Samsung and ZTE. An administrative law judge in September found no violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act because the products at issue didn’t actually infringe the patents. The ITC is now affirming the ALJ’s determination and ending the proceeding.

Signs are that FirstNet could be stalled two years after the law approving the national first responder network was enacted, former Seattle Chief Technology Officer Bill Schrier warned in a blog post. Schrier, who is FirstNet’s designated point of contact in Washington State, said the network has made a only few dozen hires to date. “Two years into a $7 billion project and only 25 full-time staff have been hired!?” he asked (http://bit.ly/OzFEwv). The public reaction to FirstNet also seems to be changing, he said. “I've been speaking to groups of public officials and police chiefs and emergency managers and firefighters and other responders in Washington State about FirstNet since May, 2013,” Schrier said. “Lately, the mood of the audiences is starting to change. ‘Yeah, yeah, we've heard you say that before, Bill, but what’s happening now? Where’s the beef?’ I'm starting to feel a bit like a computer software salesman pushing vaporware. ‘Oh yes, that feature will be in our next release slated to come out in 2017.'” In a separate blog posted by Urgent Communications, FirstNet General Manager Bill D'Agostino said real progress is being made. “Our work so far has been focused on putting the foundational building blocks in place for getting this network up and running,” he said (http://bit.ly/MrWSK7). “We want to get the job done as expeditiously as possible, but we have one opportunity to get it right and we understand this tremendous responsibility.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler knows the TV incentive auction won’t be easy, but the FCC is determined to get the rules of the road right, he told the GSMA Mobile World Congress. “Let there be no mistake about the degree of difficulty of this undertaking,” Wheeler said, according to prepared remarks released Monday (http://fcc.us/1hlG1nS). “We are attempting something never done before. But as with our original spectrum auctions twenty years ago, the risks are well worth taking. The Incentive Auction presents a two-part challenge of making the right fact-based policy decisions in an open and transparent manner and building user-friendly back-end systems and ensuring that they are exhaustively tested and ready to work from the start. We know the world is watching, and we will get this right.” Spectrum remains a priority for the commission, Wheeler said. “We are committed to bringing more spectrum capacity to market and fast.”