The FCC should hold the TV incentive auction as planned next year, T-Mobile CEO John Legere told commissioners in meetings last week, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 12-269. Legere met with all five FCC members, as well as key wireless staffers, the filing said. Legere “discussed the impact T-Mobile has had on competition in the industry for the benefit of consumers” and the importance of low-band spectrum, the filing said. Delaying the incentive auction “would only benefit AT&T and Verizon, which hold approximately 73 percent of the low-band spectrum today,” he said. T-Mobile needs low-band spectrum to compete against AT&T and Verizon, Legere argued. The timing of the auction has been in question, with commissioners saying at CES that they support a pause (see 1501120046). Industry officials tell us a 2016 auction works to T-Mobile's advantage because the spectrum aggregation rules approved for the auction limit buys by AT&T and Verizon, which could be changed under another administration.

Sprint said it will give T-Mobile customers a “guaranteed minimum” of $200 instantly for current working smartphones when they bring their wireless number to Sprint. Sprint also will continue to match all major U.S. carrier phone trade-in pricing, it said Friday. The offer runs through April 9 and can be combined with a contract buyout in which eligible T-Mobile customers can get up to $350 per line via a prepaid or reward card to cover their installment billing balance on their current phone or early termination fees, Sprint said. The carrier matches AT&T and Verizon pricing via the Sprint Buyback program but without the $200 switchover reward, a Sprint spokeswoman told us.

Paige Atkins was named associate administrator, Office of Spectrum Management, at NTIA, a key position within that agency on spectrum issues of concern to the wireless industry. She replaces Karl Nebbia, now at Wiley Rein. Atkins had been acting associate administrator since Nebbia left last year. An electrical engineer, Atkins was formerly vice president of Cyber and Information Technology Research at the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corp. and director-strategic planning and information at the Defense Information Systems Agency.

T-Mobile officials and economists working for the carrier met with FCC staff to urge changes to rules for the TV incentive auction, said a filing by the company in docket 12-269, posted Friday. T-Mobile flagged “the potential for interplay between the proposed structure of the extended rounds and the spectrum reserve in certain scenarios with high spectrum-clearing targets,” said the filing. “Under the current proposal, a large differential between bid prices and reverse-auction expenses could theoretically eliminate the spectrum reserve in the extended round and subsequent rounds despite exceptionally robust bidding by reserve-eligible bidders. The parties discussed technical solutions to avoid this outcome, which they said is most likely to occur in early rounds of bidding." The Competitive Carriers Association, meanwhile, reported on a second meeting with Gary Epstein and Howard Symons of the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force and Roger Sherman, chief of the Wireless Bureau, also about the incentive auction. Officials from Sprint and T-Mobile were also at the meeting, said a second filing in the same docket. “CCA discussed the competitive need for low-band spectrum and the critical importance of holding the incentive auction as quickly as possible.”

The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council is examining whether interference from LED and fluorescent lighting system ballasts are disrupting public safety radio systems, said a NPSTC news release. NPSTC asks public agencies to fill out an online questionnaire. In 2013, the FCC ordered one manufacturer to make changes to its LED lighting transformers after interference concerns emerged, NPSTC said. “More recently, some public safety agencies have reported interference from LED lights installed on agency radio towers, from fluorescent lighting installed at an incident command post, and from commercial buildings with large lighting systems.”

Officials with SouthernLINC Wireless raised concerns about provisions it understands are in the FCC’s proposed rules for wireless location accuracy on calls made indoors, during a series of eighth-floor meetings, said a filing posted by Friday in docket 07-114. The FCC is to vote on rules Thursday (see 1501130062). SouthernLINC's understanding is the rules include “new location accuracy requirements for both horizontal (x/y-axis) and vertical (z-axis) location information that would exclude any location information or measurements obtained through the use of satellite-assisted technologies,” the carrier said. “The rationale for excluding satellite-generated measurements is to create a proxy for ‘indoor-only’ 9-1-1 calls, based on the assumption that satellite-assisted technologies are unable to provide location information for wireless 9-1-1 calls made from indoor locations.” Both provisions raise “significant concerns,” the carrier said. T-Mobile also raised concerns about the order. In a letter to the agency, T-Mobile encouraged the agency to develop reasonable standards. Establishing compliance metrics for indoor wireless calls has long been an FCC goal, T-Mobile said. “But that task has been stymied by the difficulty of measuring indoor compliance,” it said. “For instance, it has long been clear that widespread local-level compliance testing, of the kind used for outdoor location accuracy compliance, is simply not feasible for indoor location assessment.” In a third filing posted Friday, New America’s Open Technology Institute reported on various meetings at the FCC to discuss privacy concerns raised by the proposed requirements. “It is critical for the Commission to address privacy concerns associated with E911 at this stage, before the technology is developed and deployed,” the group said.

APCO and the National Emergency Number Association filed separate letters at the FCC urging the agency to approve the road map the groups worked out with CTIA and the major wireless carriers on indoor wireless location accuracy rules. The FCC is poised to vote on rules Jan. 29. The road map's release followed seven months of work, APCO said. “The Roadmap is designed to produce a dispatchable location -- defined as the ‘civic address of the calling party plus additional information such as floor, suite, apartment or similar information that may be needed to adequately identify the location of the calling party,’” APCO said. “Dispatchable location is public safety’s gold standard for indoor location accuracy.” NENA's comments agreed: “The Roadmap is the product of many months of intensive negotiations and technical analysis, and represents the most robust agreement our organization could achieve in partnership with the carriers.” TruePosition, which wants the FCC to reject the road map, criticized the revised plan filed at the FCC this week by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (see Ref:1501210004]). “APCO and NENA did not sign this latest ‘Modified Roadmap,’ but even if these organizations do support it, this alternative to the FCC’s proposed rules has not been thoroughly vetted and endorsed by the most critical participants in this rulemaking proceeding: the First Responders and Public Safety officers who desperately need accurate indoor location information for emergency 911 calls placed by wireless phones,” TruePosition said. The FCC posted the letters Thursday in docket 07-114.

A rule change for measurement procedures in the 1920-1930 MHz band, used mainly for cordless phones, backstage intercoms and other voice-quality audio gear took effect Wednesday after publication in the Federal Register. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology adopted revised rules in August, so that they now reference the 2013 version of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) C63.17 standard instead of the 2006 standard. Fletcher Heald called the development “a bit of regulatory tidying up” and questioned why publication had taken so long, in a blog post Wednesday.

The FCC established a pleading cycle on TeleGuam’s proposed buy of an upper 700 MHz C-block license and two AWS-1 licenses from Club 42. The licenses cover two cellular market areas (CMAs) -- Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. “Our preliminary review indicates that TeleGuam would be assigned 42 to 62 megahertz of spectrum in five counties in these two CMAs,” the FCC said. “Post-transaction, TeleGuam would hold 82 to 97 megahertz of spectrum in total, including 47 megahertz of below-1-GHz spectrum” in Guam. Petitions to deny are due Feb. 20, oppositions March 2 and replies March 9.

The FCC received thousands of emails seeking tough indoor location accuracy rules for wireless, the Public Safety Bureau said in a notice posted in docket 07-114. The notice said the agency received 9,297 emails from last July to October urging a “reasonable and achievable two-year path to indoor location accuracy for wireless 9-1-1 calls.” The communications came after the FCC proposed rules in February (see 1402210038). More emails came in after APCO, AT&T, CTIA, the National Emergency Number Association, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon proposed a road map for location accuracy in November (see 1411190064), the bureau said. So far in January, the commission has received more than 1,000 emails with essentially the same message, the bureau said. “I am writing to urge you to oppose the phone companies' attempt to delay real and enforceable requirements for accurate 9-1-1 locations,” reads a typical email, according to the bureau. “The technology exists today to find all wireless 911 callers, so we should require phone companies to find the location of indoor and outdoor callers within the next two years, as your original rule proposed.” Two emails, meanwhile, urged the FCC to “accept the deal,” the bureau said. The agency is to vote on rules at its Jan. 29 meeting. Meanwhile, the four national carriers supporting the road map filed a letter at the FCC offering additional concessions. Their modified version of the road map adopts “new, quantifiable indoor-specific metrics to assure widespread wireless 9-1-1 indoor positioning fixes, including vertical location fixes,” expands the performance metrics to apply to all 911 calls, and commits to creation of a National Emergency Address Database Privacy and Security Plan to be developed and sent to the FCC, they said. “The amended Roadmap commits carriers to widespread implementation of solutions that either provide a dispatchable location or a z-axis component, or both, to assure the availability of accurate horizontal and vertical location information for indoor calls,” the carriers said. “With these commitments, there can be no doubt the Roadmap provides clear targets and accountability for indoor location through aggressive performance metrics verified by live call data and an open and transparent test bed.”