The FCC World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee (WAC) is nearing the end of its multiyear process and continues to make steady progress, WAC Chairman Scott Blake Harris, chairman of Harris Wiltshire, said during a meeting of the group Wednesday. “With the conference confirmed for November 2015, we're actually in the final stage of the work of our committee and if someone wants to say, ‘Thank God,’ that would be OK, too.” Harris said there has been acrimony as the group works through a few final positions. The WAC represents commercial interests as the administration prepares unified U.S. positions before next year’s WRC. WAC documents are at http://fcc.us/1qLdda4.

Twelve small wireless carriers, led by U.S. Cellular, urged the FCC to provide an additional 30 days for interested parties to file reply comments on the future of the Connect America Fund. If the FCC agrees, the new deadline would be Oct. 8. The Competitive Carriers Association earlier sought more time for replies (http://bit.ly/1vmwmWZ). “Over 1,000 pages of comments were filed by telecommunications providers, ISPs, electric cooperatives, equipment manufacturers, trade associations, industry groups, public utility commissions, and other filers” in the initial comment round, the carriers said in a filing in docket 01-92, posted by the FCC Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1tVdgTZ). Extra time is needed “to ensure that the extensive arguments and factual showings in the initial comments can be comprehensively addressed,” they said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau imposed an $819,000 penalty on T-Mobile for violating commission rules on making the requisite number of hearing-aid compatible handsets available to its subscribers in 2009 and 2010 (http://bit.ly/1qL3Oj0). The bureau noted it first proposed the forfeiture in May 2012. “T-Mobile does not challenge the Commission’s factual findings or legal conclusion that it willfully and repeatedly violated Sections 20.19(c)(2) and 20.19(d)(2) of the Rules,” the bureau said. T-Mobile asked for a substantial reduction in the proposed penalty, but the bureau declined to reduce the amount the carrier must pay the government, the bureau noted. “Given the fundamental importance of providing consumers with hearing loss access to advanced telecommunications services, the severity of T-Mobile’s violations, and the company’s ability to pay, the proposed forfeiture of $819,000 is equitable.” T-Mobile is reviewing the order, a spokesman said. “We provide a broad selection of handsets that are hearing aid compatible and we take seriously our commitment to meeting the accessibility needs of our customers,” he emailed. “This action relates to issues that first were raised by the Commission several years ago, and we are now in full compliance."

Worldwide revenue from tablet games is forecast to reach $13.3 billion by 2019, up from $3.6 billion this year, said a Juniper Research report. Growth will be fueled by improved storage capacity of devices, better graphics, increasing mobile broadband penetration and consumers’ preference for convenience and ubiquity, Juniper said in a Tuesday news release (http://bit.ly/1p74HRt). The next year “could be critical” for smaller, independent games developers, it said, because in a market with more than a million apps, more investment will be needed to gain consumer awareness.

EBay is offering iPhone sellers a $100 coupon if their phones don’t sell on its site Sept. 1 to Oct. 24, eBay said Tuesday. In advance of the expected iPhone 6 launch in the next few weeks, eBay released an infographic presenting historical data to predict the impact the new iPhone will have on existing iPhones and the electronics re-sell market. According to eBay, with each new iPhone model, the selling price of the iPhone models 4, 4s and 5, after the 5c and 5s launched, “averaged at around $280.” Prices have reached up to $420 on eBay for a used iPhone, it said. Four previously owned iPhones were sold every minute after the 5s/5c announcement, eBay said, and 16,700 iPhones were sold on eBay the weekend following availability of the 5s/5c last year. Some 400,000 iPhones were sold during the release cycles of iPhone 4s and later, eBay said.

T-Mobile expanded its Simple Choice plan from five lines to 10 lines per account. While the “old guard telecoms continue to force families and small business into shared data plans,” T-Mobile family plans have a dedicated LTE data bucket per person or per device, T-Mobile said Tuesday in a news release (http://t-mo.co/1p7aXbU). Every Simple Choice customer gets unlimited data, talk and text, and a dedicated bucket of LTE data starting at up to 1 GB, it said. T-Mobile also said that starting Sept. 3, adding a tablet to a postpaid Simple Choice plan costs $10 a month. The company will match a customer’s smartphone LTE data plan, up to 5 GB a month, reserved for use on that tablet, it said in another release (http://t-mo.co/1q1t1Jz).

A week after Canada-based ChargeSpot announced the first wireless charger that’s compatible with both Qi and PMA wireless charging standards, the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) asserted its independence with its Qi spec, providing a status report on Qi penetration in offices, restaurants, airports, hotels and public venues. A Qi spokeswoman told us there’s no correlation between WPC’s status report and the ChargeSpot release last week. WPC said Tuesday that the installed base of Qi-enabled wireless chargers reaches 30 countries and more than 1 million locations. “WPC’s 200-strong member companies are fueling exciting innovation of the Qi standard, Qi products and Qi-based business services, which is driving the accelerated adoption of wireless charging by consumers and businesses around the globe,” said John Perzow, WPC vice president-market development, citing 65 models of Qi-enabled phones and “over 500 different products that use Qi.” WPC said companies including Facebook, Google, Texas Instruments and Verizon have installed Qi chargers in corporate meeting rooms; nine McDonald’s restaurants in Germany recently installed Qi chargers, as have several coffee shops in Toronto and a restaurant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kube Systems announced a deal with Marriott Hotels for a Qi charging system, WPC said. Verizon has deployed 800 Qi-enabled charging spots in U.S. airports, while Haier installed charging stations in the Beijing airport and DoCoMo installed Qi charging systems in airports and train stations in Japan, it said. The installed base of Qi chargers charge one device at a time, the spokeswoman said. The company has yet to release its specification for resonant charging that will enable multi-device charging, she said.

Nokia representatives urged the FCC to adopt net neutrality rules for wireless similar to those adopted in 2010 and explained the advantages of 5G technology, in a meeting with aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-28. “Specialized services, offered for a fee, could be a significant source of value creation throughout the mobile broadband ecosystem while preserving key elements of network neutrality such as non-discrimination and no-blocking,” the filing said (http://bit.ly/1BYU9Om). A paper submitted by Nokia said 5G will offer an expected peak data rate higher than 10 Gbps, compared with the 300 Mbps LTE offers today and “virtually zero latency.” The technology of 5G “supports the huge growth of machine-to-machine type communication, also called Internet of Things, through flexibility, low costs and low consumption of energy,” Nokia said (http://bit.ly/1svNJ2A). It warned that more spectrum will be required to put 5G in place: “This means looking at new spectrum bands such as millimeter wave and centimeter wave, and using available spectrum efficiently."

Taiwan manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer entered into a consent decree with the FCC Enforcement Bureau, admitting its marketing of the Eee Pad Slider SL101 tablet computer, wireless routers, Wi-Fi bridge/range extenders and wireless adapters violated rules about localized specific absorption rate limit compliance. Wireless routers may support multiple Wi-Fi protocols that require testing under multiple frequency bands, the FCC said. ASUSTeK agreed to pay a $240,000 fine and will implement a plan to comply with equipment marketing rules over the next three years, the commission said. The FCC said it would end its investigation into ASUSTeK’s marketing practices (http://fcc.us/1vjLZ1s).

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Tuesday on Sprint’s Aug. 14 requests for waivers permitting 800 MHz wideband operations in three National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee (NPSPAC) regions before the 800 MHz reconfiguration is complete in each. The regions are: New Mexico (Region 29), Texas-El Paso (50) and Texas-San Antonio (53). In all of the regions, the rebanding is mostly complete, the bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1ARFdjD). Comments are due Sept. 25, replies Oct. 10, in docket 14-133.