Los Angeles was among four California cities that joined with municipalities in Texas and Washington Monday in the second lawsuit against the FCC's October wireless facilities deployment order. They told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the order’s wireless tower siting rules are unconstitutional and misinterpret the 2012 Spectrum Act. The order is “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion; and otherwise contrary to law,” the cities said in their joint petition for review. The other petitioning cities are: Bellevue, Washington; Ontario, Redwood City and San Jose, California; McAllen, Texas; and the Texas Coalition of Cities for Utility Issues. Montgomery County, Maryland, made the same arguments in a petition for review it filed in Richmond Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuits respectively asked the D.C. Circuit and 4th Circuit to vacate the new tower siting rules and “grant such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate.” The FCC didn’t comment. Montgomery County and the cities had jointly objected to the wireless tower siting rules in a Feb. 3 FCC filing. The localities had asked the FCC to “significantly revise” the siting rules because the current set of rules would “lead to a wide range of serious problems in local communities that it is impossible to believe Congress could have intended." The FCC voted unanimously for the rules, as part of the commission’s implementation of the 2012 Spectrum Act. They were meant to speed up wireless tower siting decisions. The rules reduced the shot clock for siting approval from 90 days to 60 days in exchange for a promise from CTIA and PCIA to work with local jurisdictions on streamlining, though many localities had urged prior to the commission vote against shortening the shot clock (see 1410170048). The two groups and local government groups jointly released a model ordinance and siting application review checklist Thursday (see 1503050056). PCIA President Jonathan Adelstein responded to the Montgomery County lawsuit, saying in a statement Monday that “we hope that this lawsuit will not detract from that goal, since PCIA supports the FCC’s rationale behind its Infrastructure Order and its guidelines for implementation.” PCIA is “working closely with cities, counties, and municipalities to make the implementation of the FCC’s new wireless facility siting regulations smooth and efficient,” Adelstein said.

While Q4 organic growth met or beat estimates for all major U.S. tower companies, New Street Research said in a report to investors Sunday that the companies forecast a sharp slowdown in 2015. SBA Communications has had the largest moderation in growth, the analyst report said. The lower growth may be due to declining activity at AT&T, the report said. AT&T has slowed network investment in part because it paused activity leading into the AWS-3 auction and in part because it plans to repurpose newly acquired Leap sites rather than build new ones, the report said. Despite the guidance, the report doesn’t see any changes to long-term industry growth predictions.

CTIA and PCIA updated FCC staff on the release of a model ordinance chapter and application checklist to facilitate the review and siting of wireless facilities (see 1503050056), said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 13-238. The parties expect that the materials will facilitate timely and consistent wireless facility modifications while minimizing the burden on state and local authorities, the associations said. “By working collaboratively, including through continued efforts to explore potential development of best practices and further education, the parties aim to provide consumers with the best advanced wireless broadband services in a more efficient and effective manner.”

The FCC called on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject a request for summary reversal from Lawrence Behr, who won an FCC private land mobile radio service license in a 1993 lottery and then saw the FCC cancel the license when he failed to meet agency build-out requirements. “Appellant Behr has failed to demonstrate that this case is the rare circumstance in which summary reversal of an agency action is appropriate,” the FCC said in a brief in the case, posted by the FCC Monday. The principal issue in dispute is the FCC’s interpretation of a rule that allows a license applicant to demand a hearing in certain cases in which the FCC has partially or conditionally granted a radio license application, the FCC said. “The FCC’s determination that this rule did not apply in appellant’s case because it had fully granted his application to modify his license warrants deference, is consistent with agency and judicial precedent, and is plainly reasonable,” the brief said. The case is Lawrence Behr v. FCC.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau ordered Oakland, California, to return to Sprint equipment that it borrowed from the carrier as part of the 800 MHz rebanding. The city wrapped up its retuning in 2011 and was supposed to return the equipment at that point but failed to do so, the bureau said. The city asked the FCC to allow it to delay return of equipment until this June 30, the bureau said. “Oakland has had over four years to return equipment to Sprint and has not done so,” the bureau said. “It offers no explanation of why it would require 4 months to pack and return the remainder of Sprint’s equipment.”

In advance of Apple’s release Monday of new details on its impending Apple Watch launch, consumers interested in wearable technology “have already started to form opinions whether they think they will buy one or whether they like some of the watch's features,” Accent Marketing said in a research report. "Our data shows that brand and product engagement can positively or negatively influence purchase decisions even long before a product is in market,” the company said. “It reinforces that companies need to offer and deliver an omni-channel engagement strategy early and often to build long-lasting relationships, as soon as consumers are exposed to a product, even a concept, all through the purchase cycle." The company polled online in February 1,000 consumers who already own at least one wearable device and found that four of every five had no plans to buy an Apple Watch, it said. Fifty-four percent view the Apple Watch as “an exciting use of technology,” though 51 percent believe the Apple Watch interface “will be too small to use,” it said. Other findings: (1) nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of wearable product consumers surveyed use their wearable tech device daily; (2) two out of three wearable product consumers want access to social media via their wearable devices; (3) three-quarters of millennials believe wearable tech devices are a new way consumer brands can engage with customers.

Wireless mic maker Shure said it needs to clarify its position on power levels after earlier comments may have been ambiguous, in comments filed in FCC docket 14-166. The comments address mics used in TV spectrum. “Shure does not support rule amendments that would reduce the existing 250 mW maximum output power limit for UHF wireless microphones,” it said. “Wireless microphones have successfully operated with up to 250 mW of output power in UHF broadcast television frequencies pursuant to Part 74 rules for many years.”

Rules proposed by CTIA for the 3.5 GHz band, which the FCC is considering as a band to test spectrum sharing, could undermine the usefulness of the band, Google said in a filing last week in docket 12-354. The FCC is moving toward final rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band and tweaking its rules after several rounds of comment (see 1502050049). “CTIA appears to be suggesting that (1) devices may rely on spectrum sensing alone, rather than [spectrum access system] management, and (2) service providers should not be required to exchange information about the usage of Citizens Band Radio Service devices on their networks,” Google said. “Accepting either of these premises would greatly compromise utilization” of the band, Google said. Assigning static frequencies for priority access licenses in the 3.5 GHz band, or permitting spectrum access systems to reside within a carrier’s network without protective conditions or restrictions are among the kinds of protections sought by CTIA that could undermine shared use of the band, said Federated Wireless, commenting in the docket. Interoperability is critical for the band and the FCC should make it a requirement, the company said.

The FCC shouldn't make further changes to the TV incentive auction rules to spur a more-competitive auction, said Free State Foundation Visiting Fellow Gregory Vogt in a blog post Friday. “Engineering competition to satisfy government whims is not ‘competition,’ but only an example of failed industrial policy,” Vogt said. “History is littered with industrial policy disasters, from 1970s price controls to crony capitalism, and, yes, even infiltrating communications markets such as failed UNE [unbundled network elements] policies and other competition-skewing policies.” In a recent blog post, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the AWS-3 auction was a disaster for competition and the FCC should reserve 40 MHz of incentive auction spectrum in every market for competitive carriers. “Make no mistake about it, skewing auction results will not produce more competition," Vogt wrote. "It will only lower auction prices, and thus give smaller carriers an artificial cost advantage."

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory objected to iRobot’s pursuit of a waiver of FCC rules to allow outdoor use of robotic lawn mowers (RLMs) and their control beacons in the 6240-6740 MHz band. The observatory said 5925–6700 MHz is generally protected and iRobot’s commitment to label its RLMs as for “Consumer use only; use must be limited to residential areas,” won't offer adequate protection. The band is protected to allow “interference-free observation of the 6.66852 GHz spectral line of methanol (CH3OH) that is abundant in star-forming regions and serves as a galactic beacon of star-forming activity owing to its maser-like qualities,” the observatory said. This lets astronomers “do a kind of celestial cartography that measures distances to star-forming regions with high precision, charting the course of galactic evolution,” it said. The filing was posted Friday in docket 15-30.