NTIA and the FCC plan to host a public workshop this spring to collect more input on a proposed model spectrum city program, NTIA said Tuesday in a blog post. “Among the topics the workshop is likely to explore include what types of cities would be best for testing sharing technologies, how should these model city experiments be funded, and what frequencies and applications should be part of the test?” NTIA said. NTIA and FCC took comments on the proposal last summer (see 1409020051) and recently met with those who filed comments to seek additional advice, NTIA said.

A push by the Electronic Privacy Information Center to get access to the Department of Homeland Security Standard Operating Procedure 303, a protocol for shutting down wireless networks during critical emergencies, hit a snag Tuesday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A lower court ordered DHS to hand over the document after EPIC sued and said disclosure is required by the Freedom of Information Act and DHS had been willing to surrender only a heavily redacted copy. The department appealed, citing FOIA exemption 7(F) and arguments that production of SOP 303 could reasonably be expected to endanger many individuals’ lives or physical safety. The appeals court agreed, in an opinion written by Judge Judith Rogers. The D.C. Circuit ordered the lower court to decide whether any reasonably segregable portions of SOP 303 can be disclosed. The court cited a declaration filed by James Holzer, a senior DHS FOIA officer. Holzer had argued that making SOP 303 public would ”enable bad actors to insert themselves into the process of shutting down or reactivating wireless networks by appropriating verification methods and then impersonating officials designated for involvement in the verification process,” the court said. The bad actors could then “freely use wireless networks to activate . . . improvised explosive devices,” the declaration said. The court agreed. “We hold that the Department permissibly withheld much, if not all of SOP 303, because its release, as described in the Holzer declaration, could reasonably be expected to endanger individuals’ lives or physical safety,” Rogers wrote.

Crestron launched a proximity detection beacon called PinPoint that identifies a users’ location in a home and automatically displays controls for that space on their iOS devices, the company said Monday. The beacon solves what Crestron called the “room default problem” created by controlling smart home technology with mobile devices, which requires homeowners to navigate to different room menus on an app when they change rooms. The PinPoint beacon knows which room a user is in and automatically displays controls for the room on an iOS smartphone or tablet, Crestron said. Sean Goldstein, vice president-marketing, described in a news release a scenario where a user walks into a room with an iPad and control for lighting scenes, music and volume are available at the touch of a button. “Move to the kitchen, and as you do the lighting scenes for the kitchen appear,” he said. Using PinPoint, integrators can more precisely customize Crestron system features for family members based room location, it said. An Internet radio station can follow a person around the house, automatically turning on in each room the person walks into, for instance. Beacons can be configured in up to 100 rooms, and once devices are paired with the PinPoint app, they'll automatically communicate via Bluetooth with beacons throughout the home, Crestron said. The company also said Panasonic TH-98LQ70 and TH-84LQ70 4K UltraHD TVs are Crestron-certified, ensuring that the TVs will deliver true 10 Gbps data rates, interface with Crestron's DigitalMedia technology to handle cable lengths found in integrated AV systems and work with other 4K products in a DigitalMedia system.

The FCC published an NPRM seeking comment on a proposal that the agency introduce new, full-power, interstitial 12.5 kHz offset channels in the 809-817/854-862 MHz bands. The Enterprise Wireless Alliance asked the FCC to initiate the proceeding in 2009, the FCC said. The proposal “creates the opportunity” for the launch of 319 additional voice-grade channels for use by public safety, businesses and others who need “high-site Specialized Mobile Radio” licensees, the agency said. “It leverages technology advancements that have made high quality narrow-band voice transmission a reality, and reflects Commission efforts to improve spectral efficiency in heavily used bands,” the NPRM said. “Our proposal may reduce barriers to innovation and encourage investment in new technologies that will enable Private Land Mobile Radio (PLMR) licensees to use the spectrum more efficiently.” The agency said the current rules have been in place since the 1970s. The FCC previously sought comment on the EWA petition through a public notice. The NPRM asks about the potential for the change to cause interference issues and on interference protection rules. Comments will be due 45 days after Federal Register publication, replies 60 days after publication.

The American Bankers Association offered a compromise to the FCC on Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules on calls to cellphones. The agency is considering the group’s October petition (see 1410140162) asking that certain time-sensitive informational calls, which are placed with no charge to the called parties, be exempted from the TCPA restrictions. ABA offered the compromise in response to questions from FCC staff, it said in a filing posted by the FCC Friday in docket 02-278. ABA would accept a ruling that it must offer customers the option to opt out from automatic messages, the group said. But ABA proposes that a consumer’s opt-out request apply “only to the account and to the category of message in response to which the request was made,” it said. “For example, a consumer’s request not to receive future data security breach notifications would not foreclose the financial institution from sending future alerts concerning questionable transactions on that or other accounts held at the institution, which also would include notice of an opt-out mechanism applicable to those messages.”

Reclassifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act has extreme, negative implications for the Internet outside the U.S., said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter in a letter Friday to the FCC. “Specifically, the Title II approach, which could insert the government into the regulation of the broadband Internet more robustly than ever before, could embolden despotic and unfriendly regimes to assume additional powers in their nations,” Spalter said. “There is also a belief among some in the Administration that there is a distinction between internet access and the content and services delivered over the internet, and that leaders in Russia and China, among others, will respect that distinction when they interpret American policy. Even for most Americans, there is no such distinction.”

An FCC proposal to establish an air-to-ground mobile broadband service over the contiguous U.S. troubles the Association of Flight Attendants, representatives told agency officials, said a filing posted Friday in docket 13-114. “These concerns are similar in nature to those expressed in reply comments to another Commission proposal, one that would lift a long-standing ban on using cellphones for voice and data on flights,” the group said. “Either proposal would greatly enhance communications capabilities for terrorists and increase cyberwarfare vulnerabilities, leading to unacceptable risks of successful attacks on the United States aviation system.”

CTIA made the case against treating mobile the same as fixed broadband under net neutrality rules, in its report on a meeting with aides to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. Consumers have more choices for mobile broadband and it's technically more difficult to provide, CTIA said in a filing in docket 14-28. “Wireless is different and the Commission was correct in 2010 in its decision not to subject mobile broadband to the same requirements as wireline broadband,” CTIA said. “Any additional rules that apply to wireless must take into account the unique competitive and technical attributes of wireless service and avoid impeding the differentiated offerings and choices mobile consumers enjoy today.”

Wireless carriers are likely to move away from aggressive pricing aimed at adding subscribers, especially in light of the high prices seen in the AWS-3 auction, said Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Mobile Ecosystem, Friday in a Fierce Wireless blog post. “AT&T and Verizon are going to have to figure out how to somehow fund the twin ambitions of additional spectrum to meet the data needs of customers, while finding additional market opportunities now that organic revenue growth in wireless is maturing.” Sprint and T-Mobile are also becoming more conservative, he said. “With all their financial obligations, I believe the wireless operators are going to be far less reckless, pricing-wise, than they have been over the past 18 months.” This has been a "pretty unique period" for wireless, with 10-20 percent reductions in price, more generous data allocations and aggressive iPhone and device buyout deals aimed at winning customers, he said.

Mobile video -- followed by music streaming and apps -- will be the key driver of global mobile data traffic in 2015, said a Gartner analysis released Thursday. Citing data from mobile providers, Gartner Research Director Jessica Ekholm said mobile video is generating half of all mobile data and will grow to more than 60 percent of mobile data consumption by 2018. Two variables in projected data usage are video-calling services and music streaming, Ekholm said. Five minutes of FaceTime video chat on a 3G network uses just 15 MB of data but as the number of video callers grows, “the collective total amount can be large,” she said. If users shift to higher bit rate music services, that could also affect data usage significantly, she said. “Mobile music streaming can easily generate hundreds of megabytes of data,” depending on the service; a user listening to Spotify can consume more than twice as much data as a Pandora user, she said. Overall, mobile data traffic is forecast to grow 59 percent this year to 52 terabytes, up from 33 terabytes last year due to newer, faster networks and growing numbers of consumers using more affordable 3G and 4G handsets. Mobile data growth is expected to continue into 2016 at a 53 percent clip to 80 million terabytes, she said. By 2018, half of North American mobile connections will use 4G networks, Ekholm said, and 4G users will generate 46 percent of all mobile data traffic, consuming nearly 5.5 GB of data monthly -- three times that of a 3G smartphone. Cisco this week projected a surge of mobile data usage in the coming years (see 1502030041).