Shutterstock/Péter Gudella

One of the agency’s mandates is to make sure that the carriers are securely protecting the information they collect from their customers. For example, phone companies have to protect the databases that store the information on call records and other data.

The question on what steps they must take when it comes to information on devices is a tricker one. The FCC looked into this question back in 2007. At the time, the carriers contended that information stored on phones wasn’t information they were collecting, but rather data being voluntarily entered by consumers.

However, the FCC thinks it might be time to revisit this given revelations last year that there is software, such as that from Carrier IQ, that is preinstalled and collecting information that users are largely unaware of and unable to control.

“Since the Commission last solicited public input on this question five years ago, technologies and business practices have evolved dramatically,” the FCC said in the document seeking comments. “The devices consumers use to access mobile wireless networks have become more sophisticated and powerful, and their expanded capabilities have at times been used by wireless providers to collect information about particular customers’ use of the network — sometimes, it appears, without informing the customer.”

The FCC isn’t taking issue with the collection of such information, but rather is examining what duties the carriers might have to encrypt or protect such information. Carrier IQ doesn’t encrypt the data it collects, but does store it in a binary format not generally accessible to other applications, the company said.

“We haven’t gone to that extent because we haven’t needed to,” Carrier IQ Vice President Andrew Coward told AllThingsD on Friday. “If the industry decided we needed to, then we would take that step.”

Carrier IQ is also taking steps to allow customers to see the information that is being collected about them by their software.

Following the comment period, the FCC could decide to, among other things, take no action, clarify its existing rules or propose new rules.

[Image via Shutterstock / Péter Gudella]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski isn’t buying it.

In a speech at the CTIA trade show in New Orleans on Tuesday, Genachowski said that it shouldn’t lead to higher prices and that, indeed, more competition will ultimately lead to lower prices for consumers.

Signaling that the agency isn’t closed to all deals, Genachowski said that rejecting one over-the-line deal “simply proves that there is a line.”

Genachowski said that, by and large, the U.S. wireless industry is in good shape.

“The kinds of challenges we have in mobile are the kind we want — challenges stemming from mobile demand,” Genachowski said.

The industry is clamoring for more spectrum, an effort that has gained some momentum, but is moving too slowly for many in the industry. And unsurprisingly, AT&T took issue with Genachowski’s take.

“The merger AT&T proposed last year was all about creating more capacity by combining the spectrum holdings and networks of two companies,” responded Jim Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President, External and Legislative Affairs. “The FCC was within its rights to withhold its approval. But it is incorrect when it denies the impact such decisions have on the price of wireless services. Basic economics, and the law of supply and demand, apply to the wireless industry as to all others. In the case of wireless, without additional capacity, which would have been created by our transaction, prices rise.”

Genachowski also used an appearance at a cellphone trade show to tout a list of recent accomplishments — everything from progress toward incentive auctions to approval of unlicensed “white spaces” spectrum, and an initiative to create a database of stolen phones.

“These successes are worth celebrating,” he said.

Genachowski began with a bit of stand-up, as he noted the long-awaited Senate confirmation Monday of two FCC commissioners.

“I’m not saying their confirmation was overdue, but they were nominated by President Truman,” he said.

Ahead of Genachowski’s speech, CTIA boss Steve Largent issued his familiar call for more spectrum, and incoming CTIA Chairman Patrick Riordan — whose day job is as CEO of Cellcom — showed a video explaining just what his company does. For those who have never heard of Cellcom, it is a rural carrier serving Wisconsin and Michigan.

Riordan is interesting, in that he gives voice to the issues of rural carriers, which often take a back seat to the “big four.”

“The issues of rural and large carriers aren’t always complementary,” Riordan said. “We can’t ignore them, but rather we must face them.”

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And, as it turns out, the engineer in question was the creator of one of the leading “wardriving” applications used for driving around with a laptop while looking for unsecured wireless networks.

While it sounds scary, wardriving doesn’t necessarily involve slurping up personal data, just measuring nearby Wi-Fi signal strength.

But, although Google was cleared of wrongdoing on this issue by the FCC (it was fined $25,000 for obstructing the agency’s investigation), the company’s lack of oversight over the supposed “rogue” engineer’s work didn’t make Google look very good.

Now, learning about the supposedly responsible engineer’s personal history makes it clear that he was an expert on the topic and his contribution was no random act.

The Times reporters say the engineer is a Google employee named Marius Milner. They did a good bit of reporting, including getting his name from a former state investigator and visiting Milner’s house.

Milner is the creator of Windows wardriving software NetStumbler, which was first released in 2001. He has been with Google (and now YouTube) since 2003, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Milner’s background is important because Google has downplayed this data collection incident from the start — at first denying it happened altogether, and then calling it a mistake.

Even if the Street View wardriving wasn’t found to be illegal, Google still has an ongoing issue around public trust and privacy to deal with.

Google, which didn’t confirm the Times report about Milner, had told the FCC that an unnamed engineer who wasn’t on the Street View team created the program to collect user data as a side project. Google employees admitted to the FCC that the project had sailed through an approval process and not been reviewed for privacy considerations by company lawyers.

But Milner, without admitting he is “Engineer Doe,” seemed to dispute Google’s characterization, according to Steve Lohr and David Streitfeld’s story in the Times.

“Depicting his actions as the work of a rogue ‘requires putting a lot of dots together,’ Mr. Milner said enigmatically Sunday before insisting again he had no comment. He said he was closely following the news reports on the issue.”

Now that we know Milner’s history, if you look back at the FCC report, it explains that “Engineer Doe” was specifically “tapped” by the Street View team to help with wardriving — although not to collect payload data.

“As Street View testing progressed, Google engineers decided that the Company should also use the Street View cars for “wardriving,” which is the practice of driving streets and using equipment to locate wireless LANs using Wi-Fi, such as wireless hotspots at coffee shops and home wireless networks. By collecting information about Wi-Fi networks (such as the MAC address, SSID and strength of signal received from the wireless access point) and associating it with global positioning system (GPS) information, companies can develop maps of wireless access points for use in location-based services. To design the company’s program, Google tapped engineer Doe, who was not a full-time member of the Street View project team.”

When Google released a less redacted version of the FCC report via the Los Angeles Times over the weekend, it issued a statement saying “We hope that we can now put this matter behind us.”

As more information about the project surfaces, that seems to be wishful thinking.

The engineer, whose name hasn’t been disclosed, explained his plans to other engineers and at least one senior manager involved with the project, known as Street View, in 2008, the FCC report states. Nevertheless, it says, Street View managers told the agency they didn’t learn the Google cars were collecting the personal information until 2010.

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T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, has slated the airwaves, or spectrum, for its development over the next several years of a high-speed mobile broadband network to keep pace with its larger rivals. The spectrum will bolster T-Mobile’s network in 12 large U.S. markets, according to a statement from the Bellevue, Wash.-based carrier.

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Stewart even got in a Lycos joke, but his real target was the softness of the federal government on all sorts of investigations.

iStockphoto | italianestro

The carrier said it will sell off all of the 700 MHz A and B licenses it got in a 2008 auction — if it is allowed to buy the AWS licenses it wants to get from the cable company consortium. Verizon says its 700 MHz C band spectrum and the AWS frequencies are enough for its LTE network.

However, it made it clear that its plans to sell the A and B band spectrum is contingent on government approval for several AWS purchase plans that are being reviewed by the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice. Verizon has pending deals to acquire spectrum from Cox and Leap Wireless as well as SpectrumCo — an entity owned by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Verizon said it is announcing the sale now “to ensure the process can move forward quickly once the AWS license transfers have been completed.” Cynical observers might think they want to push regulators just a teenie bit, too.

“Since wireless operators, large and small, have expressed concern about the availability of high-quality spectrum, we believe our 700 MHz licenses will be attractive to a wide range of buyers,” Verizon VP Molly Feldman said in a statement. “Moreover, provided our acquisition of AWS spectrum is approved, our open sale process will ensure these A and B spectrum licenses are quickly and fairly made available for the benefit of other carriers and their customers.”

(Image courtesy of iStockphoto|italianestro)

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And, for argument’s sake, let’s say it is. But not because doing so will save schools much money. At least not anytime soon.

Here’s a report from the FCC that compares costs, per student, for a traditional classroom and one that uses tablets. You can see all of the assumptions on the first page of the document, most of which come from an education/tech consortium, but the important things to note are:

• The model assumes that the tablets the students use cost $250 apiece today, and will drop in price to $150 in the “future.” Presumably this assumes that device makers end up working some kind of bulk purchase price with school districts.
• But even as hardware costs drop, other costs won’t. Which means that while a school that equips its kids with a tablet and a mobile data plan will theoretically save $34 a student per year today, those savings creep up to only $60 a student in the “future,” even though tablet costs will have dropped by $100.

There are more than 49 million students in public elementary and secondary schools in the U.S., so $60 a student per year is still real money — nearly $3 billion. But based on the math in these charts, that’s still less than 2 percent of the outlay per student per year. Which means there had better be lots of other reasons to make the switch.

CopyofFCC-COSTMODELFINAL.ppt

“In a short period of time, T-Mobile has re-emerged as a vibrant competitor in the mobile marketplace,” an FCC representative told AllThingsD in an email. “Competition benefits all wireless consumers. The bottom line is that AT&T’s proposal to acquire a major competitor was unprecedented in scope and the company’s own confidential documents showed that the merger would have resulted in significant job losses.”

On Thursday, T-Mobile said it was closing seven call centers, in a move that will lead to the loss of at least 1,900 jobs.

AT&T, which had promised not to cut call-center jobs, held out T-Mobile’s plans as proof that the country would have been better off had the deal been approved, a notion the FCC quickly took issue with.

“Yesterday, T-Mobile made the sad announcement that it would be closing seven call centers, laying off thousands of workers, and that more layoff announcements may follow,” Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External and Legislative Affairs said in a lengthy blog post.

Cicconi said that the company wouldn’t normally comment on such matters.

“But I feel this is an exception for one big reason — only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger was approved,” he said. “We also predicted that if the merger failed, T-Mobile would be forced into major layoffs.”

The corporate “I told you so” continues on for some time, and it’s worth a read, so it’s posted below.

That said, much of regulators’ concern about the deal was its effect on competition for consumers, rather than the jobs issue.

Here’s the full text of Cicconi’s statement:

“Yesterday, T-Mobile made the sad announcement that it would be closing seven call centers, laying off thousands of workers, and that more layoff announcements may follow. Normally, we’d not comment on something like this. But I feel this is an exception for one big reason– only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger was approved. We also predicted that if the merger failed, T-Mobile would be forced into major layoffs.

“At that time, the current FCC not only rejected our pledges and predictions, they also questioned our credibility. The FCC argued that the merger would cost jobs, not preserve them, and that rejecting it would save jobs. In short, the FCC said they were right, we were wrong, and did so in an aggressive and adamant way.

“Rarely are a regulatory agency’s predictive judgments proven so wrong so fast. But for the government’s decision, centers now being closed would be staying open, workers now facing layoffs would have job guarantees, and communities facing turmoil would have security. Only a few months later, the truth of who was right is sadly obvious.

“So what’s the lesson here? For one thing, it’s a reminder of why “regulatory humility” should be more than a slogan. The FCC may consider itself an expert agency on telecom, but it is not omniscient. And when it ventures far afield from technical issues, and into judgments about employment or predictions about business decisions, it has often been wildly wrong. The other lesson is even more important, and should be sobering. It is a reminder that in government, as in life, decisions have consequences. One must approach them not as an exercise of power but instead of responsibility, because, as I learned in my years of public service, the price of a bad decision is too often paid by someone else.”

About a year ago, the agency started amassing the latest gadgets in an effort to ensure that its staff is able to try out the technology they are overseeing.

“You want people writing policies in this area to have hands-on contact,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in an interview at January’s Consumer Electronics Show. Earlier this week, AllThingsD got a behind-the-scenes tour of the library.

The gadget room is separated by a glass wall from the more traditional part of the library. Inside are tablets from RIM, Samsung and Apple, as well as phones ranging from the latest Androids to the big-button Jitterbug phone aimed at seniors. There are also 3-D televisions, a Sonos digital audio player and various set-top boxes.

Each of the devices is on loan, with the agency aiming to refresh its collection each month with whatever the latest and greatest devices are. In some cases, the technology arrives in the FCC’s library even before it goes on sale.

That said, they are still waiting on the new iPad.

The device library is the FCC’s effort to deal with the fact that its workers can’t afford to buy all of the latest products, nor are they allowed to accept them for free, due to ethics rules. But, at the same time, they really need to be familiar with what’s out there, in order to make smart policies.

Genachowski and the agency’s previous managing director, former Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel, were two of the key figures behind the library. VanRoekel is now the federal government’s chief information officer.

In addition to its standard collection, the agency also organizes special events around specific topics, such as public-safety technology or accessible products for people with disabilities.

With some of the special exhibits, the agency lets things spill over into the main library. In the case of the public-safety collection, things even spilled into the streets, as FCC staffers got a look at in-car technology and even a hot air balloon that could be used to send up new wireless infrastructure in the event of a natural disaster.

For now, workers can only play around with the products inside the library itself, though Genachowski would like to see it expand further.

“Our goal is to have it be a lending library,” he said.

For a closer look inside the library, check out the photo gallery and video, as well as this immersive Photosynth photo.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120323/an-inside-look-at-the-fccs-gadget-library-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120315/commissions-assignment-find-best-uses-for-tech-in-schools/ http://allthingsd.com/20120315/commissions-assignment-find-best-uses-for-tech-in-schools/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:01:52 +0000 John Murrell http://allthingsd.com/?p=186888 In response to a challenge from the FCC and the Department of Education, a group of experts has formed the Leading Education by Advancing Digital (LEAD) Commission to look for the best ways that technology can be used in the classroom. The commission members — Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, TPG Capital’s James Coulter, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer — will survey current practices and come up with an action blueprint near the end of the year.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120315/commissions-assignment-find-best-uses-for-tech-in-schools/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120314/lightsquared-lawyers-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20120314/lightsquared-lawyers-up/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:27:25 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=186054 Last October, aspiring wholesale wireless provider LightSquared threatened litigation if the Federal Communications Commission were to block its network over concerns that it would interfere with a large number of aviation, commercial and consumer GPS devices. And now that the agency has done just that, revoking LightSquared’s conditional permission to operate its network, the company is lawyering up.

The company has hired Ted Olson, former Bush administration solicitor general, and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to help it overcome any regulatory setbacks and salvage its more than $4 billion investment in a new national wireless network.

“We will do all we can to ensure that LightSquared does not lose billions of dollars in investments due to a precipitous, arbitrary reversal by the government,” Olson said in a statement.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean LightSquared will sue, though it’s clearly an option.

“[The FCC's] decision to not allow us to go forward isn’t supported by the law or technical policy,” Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy, told Bloomberg. “We are confident about that and we are eager to prove our case.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120314/lightsquared-lawyers-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120224/an-exclusive-look-inside-nokias-smartphone-torture-chamber/ http://allthingsd.com/20120224/an-exclusive-look-inside-nokias-smartphone-torture-chamber/#comments Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:30:02 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=177139 Teijo Makinen grabs an unreleased Nokia smartphone, a product that engineers have been working on for five years to make a reality. He gives it a quick glance, then straps it to a machine and lets it free fall from about five feet onto a slab of concrete. Then he picks it up, sets it at a slightly different angle and gives it another drop.

Makinen, a hardware test specialist, has been abusing cellphones for years. It’s all part of Nokia’s effort to make sure that the devices can handle the same abuse once they are in the hands of customers.

“The purpose is to break things,” says Teemu Ala-Hynnila, director of quality operations at Nokia. That way, they can spot weaknesses and correct them before the products are released. Plus, he said, they don’t want customers to have to protect the phones with ugly rubber cases.

One room over, more prototypes are enduring other hardships. One chamber cooks phones to 55 degrees Celsius, while another sees how they do at -15 degrees Celsius. A third produces somewhere between 93 percent and 95 percent humidity.

In each case, a Nokia worker is able to pull the phone out, press a button and take a picture without delay.

The torture area is just one part of Nokia’s testing labs in Tampere, Finland. AllThingsD got a rare peek inside an area normally off-limits not only to visitors, but to most Nokia employees.

The labs themselves are a mix of old and new technology. One room resembles a 1970s sound studio. In there, enough sound is pumped in to simulate the noisiest of New York restaurants, while a robot talks into a cellphone. The robot is barely audible in the room unless you get right next to it. On the call, though, the sound is clear.

A few rooms over, a human-shaped plastic mold is filled with liquid, an effort to recreate the human form in order to test how much of a phone’s radiation is making it inside the body of a person using the phone.

Nokia is certified to do its own radiation emissions, a key step in getting new devices approved by the Federal Communications Commission and other regulators across the globe. Having its own labs, while costly, helps Nokia save the time needed to send new devices for outside testing, a move it hopes will help it crank out new devices faster.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120224/an-exclusive-look-inside-nokias-smartphone-torture-chamber/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120222/t-mobile-asks-fcc-to-deny-verizons-spectrum-buy/ http://allthingsd.com/20120222/t-mobile-asks-fcc-to-deny-verizons-spectrum-buy/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:47:11 +0000 Anton Troianovski http://allthingsd.com/?p=176877 T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS Communications Inc. are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to block Verizon Wireless’ plan to buy wireless airwaves from a group of cable companies for $3.9 billion.

T-Mobile — which just months ago was pushing antitrust authorities to approve its failed deal to sell itself to AT&T Inc. — argued in an FCC filing that Verizon Wireless’s deal poses “a clear threat to competition” and would allow the nation’s largest cellphone carrier “to accumulate even more spectrum on top of an already dominant position, while checkmating crucial avenues for growth of its smaller competitors.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120222/t-mobile-asks-fcc-to-deny-verizons-spectrum-buy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120217/harbinger-investors-sue-over-lightsquared/ http://allthingsd.com/20120217/harbinger-investors-sue-over-lightsquared/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:55:54 +0000 Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=176085 Investors in Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners sued the fund and Mr. Falcone on Friday, saying the “all in” investment in wireless startup LightSquared Inc. squandered billions of dollars.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, said Mr. Falcone made “deceptive and misleading statements” by not disclosing that he intended to form the new wireless company, which was told this week by the Federal Communications Commission it couldn’t operate its network because of Global Positioning System interference concerns.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120217/harbinger-investors-sue-over-lightsquared/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120216/falcones-plan-b-swapping-airwaves/ http://allthingsd.com/20120216/falcones-plan-b-swapping-airwaves/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:30:54 +0000 Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=175571 LightSquared Inc. may seek to exchange its wireless airwave licenses for similar ones operated by the U.S. Department of Defense in a last-ditch effort to revive its mobile broadband service, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.

The possible strategy shift comes a day after the Federal Communications Commission said it wouldn’t allow LightSquared to operate its network because of interference concerns.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120216/falcones-plan-b-swapping-airwaves/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120215/sprint-may-have-to-return-65-million-to-lightsquared/ http://allthingsd.com/20120215/sprint-may-have-to-return-65-million-to-lightsquared/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:42:56 +0000 Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=175010 Sprint Nextel Corp. said it would have to return $65 million to Philip Falcone’s LightSquared if the hedge-fund manager’s wireless venture fails to get final Federal Communications Commission approval by a mid-March deadline between the two companies.

LightSquared made the payments to Sprint last year as part of the companies’ 15-year agreement to share network buildout expenses and wireless airwaves. Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse said in January that the carrier had put its investment in LightSquared on hold as it worked to resolve concerns its network interferes with global positioning systems.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120215/sprint-may-have-to-return-65-million-to-lightsquared/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120214/lightsquared-dealt-another-blow-as-government-agency-says-gps-interference-unavoidable/ http://allthingsd.com/20120214/lightsquared-dealt-another-blow-as-government-agency-says-gps-interference-unavoidable/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:47:06 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=174670 LightSquared was dealt yet another blow on Tuesday in its effort to build a wholesale 4G cellular network.

The NTIA, a federal agency that oversees government and military spectrum use, ruled on Tuesday that LightSquared will inevitably interfere with other devices, including GPS products, that use frequencies neighboring the spectrum licensed to the company.

As a result, the Federal Communications Commission said it was planning to revoke its conditional permission for LightSquared to operate and reject the application to operate the network.

“NTIA … has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time,” the FCC said in a statement. “Consequently, the commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared.”

The FCC, while hoping LightSquared might help with the ongoing spectrum crunch, has said all along that any commercial operations would be conditioned on being able to operate without interference to existing devices.

“The commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted,” the FCC said.

For its part, LightSquared maintained that the NTIA findings were based on flawed studies and said it “remains committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry to resolve all remaining concerns.”

“LightSquared is confident that the parties will continue the ongoing efforts to explore all engineering options and alternatives to find a solution to this difficult issue,” the company said.

LightSquared has asked the FCC to find that the interference is not its fault and allow it to proceed, though that argument appears to be having little sway.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120214/lightsquared-dealt-another-blow-as-government-agency-says-gps-interference-unavoidable/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120123/t-mobile-att-seek-approval-of-spectrum-transfer/ http://allthingsd.com/20120123/t-mobile-att-seek-approval-of-spectrum-transfer/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:03:24 +0000 Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=166634 T-Mobile USA and AT&T Inc. filed a request with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for approval of the transfer of $1 billion in wireless airwaves AT&T promised as a result of the failure of its $39 billion bid to take over its smaller rival.

AT&T said it would turn over the airwaves, or spectrum, along with $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG after pulling out of the deal as opposition mounted from the FCC, Justice Department, state attorneys general and rival carriers.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120123/t-mobile-att-seek-approval-of-spectrum-transfer/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120111/fcc-chairman-we-need-that-spectrum-and-we-need-it-now/ http://allthingsd.com/20120111/fcc-chairman-we-need-that-spectrum-and-we-need-it-now/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:13:05 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=162943

Julius Genachowski on Wednesday made yet another call for Congress to speedily allow incentive auctions to free up badly needed spectrum for the wireless industry.

But while the content in the FCC chairman’s speech was familiar, his vehicle for delivering it was different. He’s given many speeches reading from a tablet, as he did in Vegas, but this was the first time he had done so on an Android model — a Samsung Galaxy 8.9.

“I’ve only done them on the iPad,” Genachowski said. “On my smartphones I’ve tried to make it a practice to switch them up.”

So how was it?

“It was all good,” Genachowski said, showing off his remarks on the Galaxy tab. His trusty iPad was nearby, which he used to dash off a quick email before our interview. “It was a seamless experience.”

As for the content of his talk, Genachowski focused on several points that are near and dear to his heart — first, that Congress enable the auctions quickly, and second, that it leave the FCC the option of keeping some of the spectrum freed up for unlicensed purposes.

“It would be a very serious mistake to pass incentive legislation and prohibit the FCC from using some spectrum for unlicensed (uses),” he said, echoing comments he made on a Silicon Valley swing late last year.

Such uses, he said, allow innovation that could provide for even more efficient spectrum usage than limiting it only to licensed purposes.

“We may see innovations there that lead to more efficient use,” he said. “To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

Genachowski said that allowing those with unused spectrum to auction it off could allow for the recovery of 100MHz of very high quality spectrum near the 700MHz band used for today’s 4G services.

“The work doesn’t end with incentive auctions, but incentive auctions are a sure way to provide very significant relief to spectrum.”

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• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120111/fcc-chairman-we-need-that-spectrum-and-we-need-it-now/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120102/sprint-grants-lightsquared-30-day-reprieve-on-fcc-clearance/ http://allthingsd.com/20120102/sprint-grants-lightsquared-30-day-reprieve-on-fcc-clearance/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:15:35 +0000 Greg Bensinger http://allthingsd.com/?p=158811 Sprint Nextel Corp. said Sunday it gave billionaire Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. wireless venture a 30-day extension to a Dec. 31 deadline to get Federal Communications Commission clearance to operate its network.

Getting FCC clearance is a condition of a 15-year fourth-generation spectrum-and-equipment-sharing accord between the two companies. LightSquared has said the Sprint accord will help it save $13 billion through the end of this decade.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120102/sprint-grants-lightsquared-30-day-reprieve-on-fcc-clearance/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111222/fcc-approves-att-purchase-of-qualcomm-licenses/ http://allthingsd.com/20111222/fcc-approves-att-purchase-of-qualcomm-licenses/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:15:14 +0000 Amy Schatz http://allthingsd.com/?p=156493 Federal regulators approved AT&T Inc.’s $1.9 billion acquisition of airwaves from Qualcomm Inc. Thursday, giving AT&T a much-needed boost after its deal to acquire T-Mobile USA fell apart.

The Federal Communications Commission signed off on the deal Thursday on a 3-1 vote, with minor conditions, FCC officials said. The approval means that AT&T and Qualcomm could close the deal by the end of the year.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111222/fcc-approves-att-purchase-of-qualcomm-licenses/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111222/fcc-approves-first-device-to-run-in-the-white-spaces/ http://allthingsd.com/20111222/fcc-approves-first-device-to-run-in-the-white-spaces/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:02:36 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=156319 The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved the first device to run in the so-called “white spaces” between TV channels.

The product getting the okay is designed to offer broadband service, and is made by a company called Koos Technical Services. KTS has been among the companies heavily involved in working with the FCC to test white-spaces devices.

The white spaces, though not without their challenges, are seen by proponents as offering some of the same potential uses as the unlicensed regions used by Wi-Fi. Because they operate at a lower frequency range, they offer the potential to work over a longer range and perform better indoors.

“With today’s approval of the first TV white spaces database and device, we are taking an important step towards enabling a new wave of wireless innovation,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. “Unleashing white spaces spectrum has the potential to exceed even the many billions of dollars in economic benefit from Wi-Fi, the last significant release of unlicensed spectrum, and drive private investment and job creation.”

Approval is limited, for now, to service in Wilmington, N.C. But it’s a first step for an area that has long been talked about as rich for new innovation.

The FCC said the approval will be expanded nationwide once the government finishes establishing procedures for those using wireless microphones (which also operate in these areas of spectrum) to coexist with devices running in the white spaces.

Regulators have been looking to open up the spectrum for some time, and have worked to address objections from the TV industry (and performers including Dolly Parton), who have worried about potential interference. The FCC voted last year to formally open the spectrum up to devices, after granting initial approval back in 2008.

(Image credit: iStockphoto | gaiamoments)

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