The FCC Wireless Bureau granted McDonough, Georgia, a waiver, letting it use a channel normally reserved for two-way communications to read water meters. The city had previously received a license to use the 952.56875 MHz channel for meter reading and had invested $876,000 in equipment, the bureau said. But in 2013, the city let the license expire, the bureau said in a Friday order (http://bit.ly/1rkcMZV). An FCC reminder letter to renew the license “was addressed to a former City administrator who had retired seven years earlier, and ... the letter had not made its way to anybody else who was currently working for the City,” city officials told the bureau. The bureau said “while we do not condone or excuse the City’s failure to renew its license, under the unusual circumstances of this case, we believe it would be inequitable and unduly burdensome to require McDonough to replace its water meter equipment to operate on a new frequency.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau agreed with AT&T that since it no longer has ties to Latin American carrier América Móvil, it need not continue to honor transaction commitments made five years ago. In 2009, as part of its purchase of Centennial, AT&T agreed to operate Centennial’s CDMA network in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for 18 months after the closing and to limit dealings with Mexico’s América Móvil. AT&T notified the FCC in July it had sold its stake in América Móvil and no longer has any relationship with the company (http://bit.ly/1jjtw0s). AT&T told the commission it was required to file notice as a condition of a November 2009 order approving AT&T’s buy of Centennial (http://bit.ly/1waibQG). AT&T asked that the bureau conclude that the changes are sufficient to deem the América Móvil commitments “null and void.” The Wireless Bureau did so in the Friday letter to AT&T posted in docket 08-246 (http://bit.ly/1okNPaY).

Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld said the FCC shouldn’t adopt a presumption against unlicensed mobile operations on Channel 37 so that the wireless medical telemetry service (WMTS) is protected. “The Commission should, at this early stage, avoid overly conservative presumptions that would preclude access to necessary spectrum for broadband use -- particularly in urban markets,” Feld said in a filing (http://bit.ly/1pf1Qar) posted Thursday in docket 12-268. The question of how white spaces devices and WMTS “can best share Channel 37 should be resolved by engineering data submitted in the record,” Feld said. GE Healthcare earlier asked the FCC to reconsider its “arbitrary and capricious decision” to allow the unlicensed use of TV Channel 37 (http://bit.ly/1ARjJ4s). GE Healthcare is one of the main companies promoting WMTS. GE, the WMTS Coalition and others also met with FCC officials on the issue in recent days, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1uKegdP). The main focus was “mathematical and other errors” in FCC analysis of whether unlicensed mobile base stations would cause interference with WMTS if allowed to use Chanel 37, said the WMTS promoters.

CTIA urged the FCC to nail down final rules in its wireless infrastructure proceeding. CTIA Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Brian Josef spoke with Wireless Bureau Associate Chief Chad Breckinridge by phone Tuesday on the topic, said an ex parte filing Thursday in dockets including 13-238. Josef laid out what he saw as several necessary changes the agency should make, such as excluding from the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) assessment “the installation of new or replacement antennas on existing structures more than 45 years old, if the new antennas are: (i) being added in the same location as existing antennas, (ii) no more than 3 feet taller than existing antennas (with limited exception), and (iii) comply with any requirements placed on the existing antennas based on prior NHPA review,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/1viO5MF). “The Commission should not require new antennas to be invisible from the street in order to qualify for the exclusion, as this approach would largely eliminate its benefits.” Equipment with an enclosure of 17 or fewer cubic feet should be categorically excluded from any environmental and NHPA review, it said, also suggesting the FCC interpretation of the Spectrum Act’s definition of “substantially change the physical dimensions” be “a definition consistent with the Nationwide Programmatic Agreement for the Collocation of Wireless Antennas.” The agency should also “make clear that existing legal, non-conforming structures, including both towers and base stations, are eligible for Section 6409(a) relief,” CTIA said.

Opportunity in the smart home market is being challenged by a host of factors including pace of new product introductions, lack of interoperability, increasing product complexity and business objectives that “aren’t aligned,” said Tom Kerber, analyst at Parks Associates, during a webcast. Kerber said there’s swelling interest in the category as participants on the manufacturer, service provider and retailer sides all look for ways to profit from the nascent, but growing, category. Kerber said interest is growing worldwide, as Tuesday’s webcast included attendees from North and South America, Africa, Asia and throughout Europe. As the number of smart home devices grows “exponentially,” companies in the market are challenged to “scale to keep pace” with the number and breadth of smart devices available, Kerber said. Consumers increasingly want those products to be interoperable, but most aren’t because interoperability “is rather difficult to accomplish,” he said. In most cases, customers who have bought a networked camera and thermostat, for example, find “those products don’t work together,” Kerber said. Another hurdle to smart device interoperability is the “growing number” of home network standards, Kerber said. “It seems like every month there are announcements of new groups that are working together to expand interoperability,” he said, citing Open Interconnect Consortium, Thread Group and ULE on the home network side and Allseen, DLNA and UPnP on the peer-to-peer side. Interoperability also is occurring in the cloud where services and business data are exchanged between partners to create new value-added services, he said. “The challenge is bridging between the multiple protocols and communications standards.”

The total cost of the Apple Watch’s plastic AMOLED display “is highly dependent on yield rates throughout the manufacturing and assembly process,” DisplaySearch said Wednesday in an emailed sales pitch for its Flexible Displays Technology and Market Forecast Report (http://bit.ly/1msRbgB). “Producing a high resolution AMOLED display alone is challenging,” the company said. “Add the processes for coating the flexible substrate on carrier glass, encapsulation, and laser-lift off and the module process becomes even more complicated.” Assuming a 60 percent yield rate, DisplaySearch estimates the Apple Watch’s display costs more than $27 on bill of materials terms, “depending on the costs of the module, touch panel interface, and cover lens.”

CES for the first time will carve out an exhibit area dedicated to commercial drones, beginning with the 2015 show that opens Jan. 6 for a four-day run, CEA said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1rkusCi). The “Unmanned Systems Marketplace” will span about 6,500 square feet of exhibit space in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall, enough room for about 16 exhibiting companies, it said. CES estimates the global market for consumer drones will approach $130 million in 2015 and will “easily exceed” $1 billion in the next five years. “Drones and unmanned systems are being used to assist in a variety of applications, from aerial coverage for sports and real estate, to assistance in search and rescue and disaster relief missions,” said Karen Chupka, CEA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy.

The FCC approved revisions to its 2013 technical rules for signal boosters, providing relief sought by Wi-Ex on rules for the testing and certification of wideband consumer signal boosters. The FCC also sought further comment in docket 10-4 on a single issue in the order and Further NPRM (http://bit.ly/Y34b0K), released Monday. Wi-Ex, which sells boosters, had complained in a petition seeking reconsideration that testing procedures to certify wideband boosters were complicated by the need for special test equipment to determine whether the device complies with the downlink noise limit in the rules. Wi-Ex told the FCC that during the course of meetings with the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and the ANSI ASC C63 working group “it was determined that filtering equipment that includes variable tunable bandpass filtering and notches was necessary to measure the downlink noise in the presence of downlink signals through the booster,” the order said. But the OET lab and other labs that test communications equipment “do not have such equipment, thus complicating device testing,” the FCC said. “We agree ... and find that the requested amendments to our rules will facilitate the test procedures and equipment certification process for Wideband Consumer Signal Boosters without diminishing the safeguards in our rules designed to protect wireless networks.” The FCC approved a handful of changes sought by V-Comm, Verizon and Wilson Electronics in a second petition. Among them, the FCC approved new noise and gain limits for provider-specific consumer signal boosters. The commission accepted a recommendation that “the maximum booster gain not exceed 58 dB and 65 dB for frequencies below and above 1 GHz, respectively.” The FCC said the limits are “reasonable for signal booster manufacturers to implement, while also adequately protecting against interference to wireless networks.” The FCC also adopted, at the joint petitioners’ request, a requirement that provider-specific boosters “must be sold together with antennas, cables, and/or coupling devices that meet the requirements of this section” of FCC rules. The FCC also adopted a requirement that all consumer signal boosters certified for fixed, in-building operation include a label directing consumers that the device may only be operated in a fixed, in-building location. “We agree that such a requirement is appropriate to ensure that consumers are properly informed about which devices are suitable for their use and how to comply with our rules,” the FCC said. The FNPRM tees up a single issue -- should the FCC eliminate the “personal use” restriction for provider-specific consumer signal boosters. “Would removing this restriction for Provider-Specific Consumer Signal Boosters be in the public interest?” the FCC asks. “What are the costs and benefits of removing the restriction? What are the costs and benefits of maintaining the restriction?” Comments will be due 30 days after the notice appears in the Federal Register and reply comments 20 days later.

The FCC sought more information from AT&T and Club 42 CM on the proposed sale of two Lower 700 MHz B block licenses in California by the small company to AT&T. “Explain in detail the decision made by Club 42 to assign the Lower 700 MHz B Block spectrum that is the subject of this application to AT&T, including any attempts made to enter into a sale of this spectrum or alternative arrangements with parties other than AT&T,” said the letter sent Monday to Club 42 (http://bit.ly/1yp0Rhv).

NTIA plans its next facial recognition multistakeholder meeting Nov. 6, the agency said Tuesday on its website (http://1.usa.gov/1ev31lr). The group hasn’t met since late July (CD July 25 p14), and stakeholders have been split over whether it can move toward consensus and a code of conduct after talks resume (CD Sept p13). After the November meeting, the group will reconvene Dec. 15. The group had been expected to restart in September, but scheduling conflicts pushed the timeline back, participants told us.