County governments are continuing to encourage the deployment of wireless facilities and are committed to developing best practices, said NATOA Executive Director Stephen Traylor and representatives for local governments Friday during a meeting with Renee Gregory, wireless aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Joe Briggs, a commissioner in Cascade County, Montana, said the county created a land use study map with the Department of Defense’s Malmstom Air Force Base outlining areas for the construction of wireless facilities and other development, the National Association of Counties (NAC) said in an ex parte posted Wednesday. Such maps “could be the type of information included in a best practices manual,” NAC said in docket 13-238. NAC also discussed the possibility of hosting or contributing to an FCC workshop after the FCC develops rules on wireless facilities siting (http://bit.ly/1wEwDFj).

The FCC refused to declare that Sprint has paid out enough in 800 MHz rebanding costs so the carrier won’t owe the federal government a “windfall” payment for the spectrum it received as part of the 800 MHz rebanding order, in an order released Wednesday. In January 2013, Sprint asked the FCC (http://bit.ly/ZvvL2k) to declare it has met the obligation Nextel took on before it combined with Sprint, in the FCC’s landmark 800 MHz rebanding order in 2004. The order stipulated that Nextel would be required to pay the full value of the 10 MHz national spectrum license it got as part of the rebinding agreement. The goal of the rebanding order was to address interference to public safety systems in the 800 MHz band. “We conclude that it is premature to make this finding at this time, but we establish an expedited process for assessment of Sprint’s creditable expenditures and provide guidance as to additional documentation Sprint may submit to support such a determination in the future,” the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1raZkqj). But the agency signed off to reduce the letter of credit amount Sprint must maintain to guarantee it has funds on hand to pay for the rebanding from $850 million to $457 million, which is slightly higher than projected remaining rebanding costs. The letter was originally $2.5 billion but was gradually reduced as the rebanding moved forward, the FCC said. Requiring maintenance of a $850 million letter of credit is “unnecessarily burdensome on Sprint,” the agency said. “Sprint is required to pay substantial carrying fees on the letter of credit. No public interest purpose would be served by requiring Sprint to continue to incur them at the present level.”

Towerstream selected Siklu’s gigabit wireless backhaul for fixed wireless and small cell locations. Towerstream selected Siklu’s systems because they offer “reliable high throughput and simple and fast deployments in dense urban areas,” the companies said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1ARsgEH). It said Towerstream is leveraging its fixed wireless networks to provide wireless broadband and small cell infrastructure capabilities in 12 of the largest U.S. markets.

Global smartphone shipments will approach 1.2 billion units this year, up 19 percent from 2013, Juniper Research said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1wnNdGq). Growth in emerging markets on the “continued surge” in sales of “economy” and “ultra-economy” smartphones priced under $75 will drive much of the increase, it said. “While Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the ultra-premium end of the market, these vendors are facing significant pressure from local players in the emerging markets,” it said. “These new players are beginning to build market share and achieve larger economies of scale, which eventually will enable them to expand their offering and challenge other smartphone sectors in the future.” Still, Apple and Samsung will have nearly 45 percent of the smartphones shipped globally this year, it said.

NTIA on Monday posted 14 comments on a model spectrum city that had been filed at the agency (http://1.usa.gov/YMl3tZ). The FCC also took comments (CD Sept 3 p2). Among the commenters, Madison, Wisconsin, urged the government to select multiple cities for the designation. “That would allow different competing technologies and techniques for spectrum sharing” to “be deployed at the same time and their pros and cons can be comparatively evaluated,” the city said (http://1.usa.gov/1qRH9FO).

Leveraging location information available as Wi-Fi coverage zones become “more ubiquitous” offers a better way to deliver better location information from wireless calls made indoors, Cisco and TeleCommunications Systems (TCS) officials said in a meeting with staff from the FCC Homeland Security Bureau. The companies reported on the meeting in a filing posted Monday in docket 11-117 (http://bit.ly/1y7F9yd). The company officials said they demonstrated how Cisco’s Wireless Local Area Network and TCS’s GEM9-1-1 client can operate as a “gateway” between an enterprise network and a public safety answering point. The demonstration showed how a PSAP could obtain information, including the suite of the texter, from a text to 911 sent by a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone, the companies said.

Apple’s wireless charging technology for the Apple Watch, which CEO Tim Cook suggested would be part of a user’s nightly ritual, didn’t do anything to settle the wireless charging competition among the three primary contenders: Alliance for Wireless Power, Power Matters Alliance and Wireless Power Consortium. Concerns that the market would be muddied by a fourth competing standard were allayed on Apple Watch launch day “at least for another six to 12 months” ahead of the next watch announcement, said Ryan Sanderson, IHS analyst, in a research note. In fact, industry watchers said it appears that Apple Watch’s charger isn’t really wireless at all because it requires the watch to be tethered to the charger that’s held in place by a magnet. Apple Watch’s inductive wireless charging isn’t a “drop and charge” technology, “nor does it offer any range of movement” to the user, said Sanderson. It’s “essentially a wire with a magnet on the end,” Sanderson said. In a New York Times interview last week (http://nyti.ms/1sboEIP), Cook referred to the need for “finishing touches” as a reason why the Watch won’t be available by Christmas, leading the writer to speculate that improving battery life might be one of those touches. “Whilst Apple did announce a wireless charging solution for its eagerly awaited smartwatch,” it was “far from innovative when compared with other wireless charging technologies currently in production or in development,” Sanderson said. Existing wireless chargers typically use a pad or mat on which consumers can place an enabled device without the need to connect the two with a power cable. Advancements in wireless charging are beginning to offer more spatial freedom, so a phone doesn’t have to lie directly on a charging surface. That’s opening the door to furniture and countertops that can be charging locations, Sanderson noted. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, meanwhile, will ship without wireless charging support built in, Sanderson said. The lack of wireless charging capability in the new phones could indicate that the Watch’s technology is an interim step. Consumers who want wireless power charging for their phones will have to take the route users take today, using a case with a built-in wireless charging receiver along with a compatible charging pad with a transmitter. A Duracell product sells for $119 at the Apple Store, compared with a mophie juice pack battery extender case that sells for $79.

Google is asking the FCC to allow it to do drone tests in New Mexico, consulting engineer Steven Crowley said in a blog post, citing a Sept. 12 filing by Google (http://bit.ly/1y81ITo). Crowley said key details were redacted from the filing, but Google proposes to use 910 MHz and 2.4 GHz spectrum, which is otherwise open for unlicensed use. “We don’t know what Google is doing with these bands, but Google says the 2400 MHz antenna is oriented such that vertical peak gain is 20 degrees below the horizon,” he wrote (http://bit.ly/1ph1wqz). “Similarly, the 910 MHz antenna is oriented 5-90 degrees above the ground plane. This suggests the higher band is for a drone-to-ground link, and the lower band is for ground-to-drone.”

The rapidly growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) market and 4G network present an IT security threat, said Martin Nuss, chief technology officer at integrated circuits company Vitesse Semiconductor, in a company news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1m0nUJX). Nuss spoke at CTIA Super Mobility Week: “While mobile networks are inherently more secure than WiFi hotspots, the emergence of small cell base stations required for LTE and LTE-A capacity improvements poses a new security risk. Consequently, the small cells themselves need to be authenticated on the service provider network and traffic encrypted back to the service provider, including over the third-party access provider network.” If industry doesn’t focus on the issue, 4G networks won’t continue to flourish, he said.

The recent launches of the Samsung Note Edge, Samsung Galaxy Round and LG G Flex “took the hype” surrounding flexible smartphone displays “one step closer to reality,” Strategy Analytics said Friday. Despite being made from flexible OLED materials, those first-generation phones “offer limited new functionality and in fact have curved rigid screens, rather than flexible screens,” it said. “Curved OLED screens offer a number of benefits over rigid LCD screens, including being lighter, thinner and supposedly more durable. In addition, the curved form factor of the screens may offer a more comfortable user experience.” In terms of their impact on display technology for smartphones, “they are a huge leap forward” and are likely the “precursors” to “truly flexible” smartphone displays in the future, when leveraging OLED’s flexibility “will enable a host of completely new designs and form factors to be developed such as smartphones with tablet-sized foldable screens,” it said. Challenges abound in making “truly flexible and foldable” devices commercially available, it said. “More of the phone’s components need to be flexible to make a truly flexible phone, not just the display. This includes the cover material, the batteries as well as the semiconductors and other components. In addition, new tools and processes will need to be developed for cost-effective volume production.” Strategy Analytics estimated it will take three years for those challenges to be overcome. Once conquered, “it is likely that flexible OLED displays will become the preferred display technology in mass consumer products within the next 10 years,” it said.