The Federal Communications Commission doesn't plan to make the recommendation that public safety receive the 10-megahertz of spectrum in the D-block 700 MHz band when it presents its national broadband plan to Congress in March, said Jamie Barnett, chief of the FCC's public-safety and homeland-security bureau.

That's because current law requires the FCC to auction the D-block spectrum to commercial operators, Barnett told the audience at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Winter Summit. Back in 2008, when the 700 MHz spectrum was auctioned, the D-block swath, which was set aside for a public-private partnership for public-safety services, failed to receive the minimum bid required to win the spectrum. APCO and other public-safety organizations are now asking lawmakers for the spectrum directly. That spectrum would be added to the 10-megahertz of spectrum public safety has already been allocated to create a 20-megahertz network.

 "It would be great to have 20 MHz," Barnett said in an article from Urgent Communications. "The problem that we have right now as we pursue this is that the D Block is dedicated to commercial use - we're actually under a mandate to auction it. So we had to figure out a way to come up with a viable system even if you don't get the D Block."

Instead, the commission wants a public/private proposal that calls for 700 MHz commercial carriers to build out the public-safety broadband wireless network--likely using LTE--which should greatly reduce the capital costs associated with the first-responder network, Barnett said. 

"When the truck goes out to put up the commercial broadband network, they're actually installing the antennas and boxes," Barnett said. "One of the things that is very encouraging is that it's obvious the carriers are already planning for this--they've already looked at what it would take to do this. Some of them have come up with some very innovative things... What we're getting from them is that it would be economically advantageous to do it all together, and that just makes sense," he said.   

Another benefit of such a plan would be to allow public-safety users to roam on the networks of commercial 700 MHz commercial operators to obtain additional bandwidth.

Of course, the big question is how to fund the network.

For more:
- see this Urgent Communications article

Related articles:
Debate over D Block's fate heats up
Verizon urges scrapping D-Block auction process
FCC proposes new plan to auction D-Block
Is the D-Block dead?
Congress takes on failure of D-block auction

Harris Stratex Networks has changed its name to Aviat Networks, reflecting the need to drop the Harris name now that the company has divested its share in the wireless backhaul provider.

Aviat was created three years ago as the result of a merger between Harris and Stratex Networks. Harris subsequently divested its controlling stake in the company, said Saun McFall, vice president and CMO with Aviat. Along with the name change, the company's NASDAQ ticker symbol has changed to AVNW.

Aviat's primary business is wireless IP radios, but it also plays in the WiMAX base station space through its purchase of Telsima and last March won a deal with rural WiMAX operator Open Range to run its new wireless residential broadband network. Via Telsima, Aviat is working with WiMAX operators in India.

McFall said the company is focused on three areas: under developed regions, such as India and Africa, the data capacity explosion in the U.S. and Europe and contracts associated with broadband stimulus funding, although the awards for WiMAX networks are few and far between at this point. McFall added that stimulus funding for broadband networks aren't unique to the U.S., suggesting that the company is heavily targeting other areas.

About one-third of the company's business comes from the U.S. market, while the other two-thirds come from international markets. In the U.S., half of its business is mobile backhaul while the other half involves constructing private networks for state and local governments.

For more:
- check out the company's release

Related articles:
Harris Stratex snaps up WiMAX vendor Telsima for $12M  
Harris Stratex launches new 4G backhaul solution

Southwest Airlines announced late last week that it signed an equipment purchase contract with inflight WiFi provider Row 44, which provides high-speed Internet access via the Ku band satellites. The airlines said it has now begun the process of ordering equipment and scheduling for a full-fleet installation after ending the equipment testing phase.

Southwest chose Row 44 back in August but has since remained quiet about its specific plans, only saying inflight WiFi rollouts would begin in 2010.

Southwest plans to begin installing equipment during the second quarter with a goal of equipping 15 aircraft per month initially and increasing that number to 25 per month. "With this schedule, we estimate that our full fleet of more than 540 planes will be outfitted with WiFi service by early 2012," said Southwest's Dave Ridley in a blog post.

Still unanswered is the cost of the service. The airlines isn't announcing that yet, saying it's still testing a myriad of price point on the four aircraft that are currently equipped with WiFi. Currently, passengers on certain WiFi-available flights pay between $2 and $12 per flight depending on travel distance and the type of device passengers are connecting. As such, an iPod Touch user may pay a different price than a laptop user.

For more:
- check out the blog post

Related articles:
Row 44 wins FCC approval for inflight WiFi
Southwest Airlines to roll out inflight WiFi to entire fleet
Southwest Airlines to test satellite broadband service

The UK is seeing its hopes of being one of the first-mover countries to deploy more advanced mobile data networks, namely LTE and WiMAX, fade as the auction of 2.6GHz spectrum is now not expected to happen until 2011.

The UK originally wanted to auction the spectrum in 2007, but the process has been constantly delayed. The recent delay is attributed to the proposed merger of T-Mobile UK and Orange UK and the possibility that the combined company will exceed spectrum caps even without the new spectrum. The other issue is the decision to auction the 2.6GHz licenses in combination with the digital dividend spectrum in the 800MHz band.

Kip Meek, the government-appointed independent spectrum broker, said during a public forum, according to ZDNet UK, that the outcome of his proposals for the 2.6GHz auction were unclear because of competitors' concerns over the T-Mobile/Orange merger and threatened legal action from British Telecom.

"The government will be considering its response to the consultation paper, [but] that process is taking longer than originally anticipated. They will have to take a view whether, in the dying months of this government, they will want to push through with this particular set of proposals," Meek told ZDNet.

Meek is advocating that Vodafone and O2 receive spectrum in the 800MHz band only if they give up an equal amount of 900MHz spectrum. In addition, the combined T-Mobile/Orange company should only be allowed to bid for limited amounts of spectrum in the 2.6GHz band if they give relinquish some licenses in the 1.8GHz or 2.1GHz bands.

For more:
- check out this Rethink Wireless article
- read this ZDNet UK article

Related articles:
UK planning one big 4G spectrum auction in 2010
Swedish 2.6GHz auction prices will act as guide to others
Clearwire comes to Spain with mobile WiMAX
Vodafone Germany tests LTE in digital dividend spectrum

Time Warner Cable left the door open for a possible voice service running over Clearwire's mobile WiMAX network, but said that it was still in the early stages of using WiMAX in its products. As one of Clearwire's wholesale partners--along with Sprint Nextel and Comcast--Time Warner has been offering its own branded WiMAX service, called Road Runner Mobile. Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings conference that he believes the networks of the future will combine wireless and wireline components. Article

While Verizon Communications saw its lowest quarterly subscriber additions in years for FiOS TV during the fourth quarter 2009, AT&T fared much better, seeing its IPTV new customer additions for Q4 that were higher than in the third quarter and at the same level with its sign-ups for the second quarter last year. AT&T added 248,000 U-verse TV subscribers in Q4, up slightly from the 240,000 signed up in Q3. Verizon earlier this week said it added only 153,000 FiOS TV customer in Q4, well below analyst expectations.

AT&T had 2.1 million U-verse TV customer at the end of 2009. Verizon had about 2.9 million FiOS TV customers. AT&T actually added more customers--1 million or so--to its telco TV service during last year than Verizon did. More importantly to AT&T, the telco said its revenue from U-verse TV, broadband and voice tripled during 2009, and is re-defining the telco's customer revenue profile.

The negative TV-related news from AT&T coming out of 2009: The telco showed a net decline in satellite TV customers of 21,000 during Q4. This showing follows a statement last year from AT&T-satellite partner DirecTV that its customer additions coming from telco resale deals were leveling off.

For more:
- Multichannel News has this story

Related articles
AT&T added 240,000 U-verse TV customers in Q3 2009
AT&T surpassed the 2 million IPTV subscriber in Q4

AT&T reported this week that its customers made a record 85.5 million Internet connections via its WiFi network in 2009, four times the number of WiFi connections made in 2008, when WiFi-enabled devices weren't as widespread.

During the fourth quarter of 2009, AT&T customers made 35.3 million WiFi connections, an increase of 10 million connections from the third quarter. Fourth-quarter connections also exceeded the number of connections made in the entire first half of 2009.

AT&T said the majority of connections in 2009 came from smartphones, like the iPhone, and integrated devices. These devices accounted for 72 percent of fourth-quarter connections and 61 percent of the total connections in 2009. Most, if not all, AT&T smartphones include automatic authentication on the company's WiFi networks.

For more:
- see this AT&T release

Related articles:
AT&T, Verizon bolster WiFi offerings
AT&T reports WiFi surge as more devices support auto-authentication
Operators embracing WiFi, but how far will they go?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announced the awarding of $310 million in grants to service providers that operate in 14 rural communities under the federal broadband stimulus program.

Included in the latest round were a mix of incumbent phone companies and electric utilities building out middle- and last-mile networks. Among the winners were Alaskan-based carrier GCI, which will use a $88 million grant to build a middle-mile network connecting 65 towns in Southwestern Alaska. Other grant recipients included a Missouri electric cooperative that will use a $19.1 million grant to build a fiber network that will connect 5,000 homes, businesses, and public safety agencies in Ralls County, Mo.

Just one wireless last-mile project was in the bunch. LaMotte Telephone Co. received funding for a 300-foot tower and WiMAX installation for the rural area of Springbrook, Iowa.

Meanwhile, RUS plans to issue all of its first-round due diligence rejection letters to applicants by mid-February, which, if the timeframe holds, will give round-two applicants a full 30 days to craft their applications and ensure they don't overlap with awards that are already granted in the first round. Applications for the second round are due March 15, according to Stimulatingbroadband.com.

For more:
- see this USDA release
- take a look at this Stimulatingbroadband.com article

Related articles:
U.S. Government doles out initial broadband stimulus awards
NTIA delays broadband stimulus awards again
NTIA, RUS flooded with broadband stimulus applications totaling $28 billion
NTIA, RUS delay broadband grant awards
NTIA to begin awarding broadband stimulus grants in November
Broadband stimulus: Clarity is needed, say service providers
NTIA reports strong interest in broadband funding applications
Comcast protests broadband stimulus

We can all exhale now. Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company's highly anticipated new tablet device, called the iPad, at a media event in San Francisco.

The device, which looks like a larger version of the iPod touch, will come with both WiFi and 3G wireless data from AT&T. Apple and AT&T continue to be attached at the hip, but the service won't require a contract like the iPhone. This ultra-thin tablet, which doesn't enable traditional wireless voice services, will allow users to surf the web, check email, play games and watch videos, among other things.

Jobs said two 3G data plans from AT&T will be available for the iPad: $14.99 per month for 250 MB and an unlimited data plan for $29.99 per month. The services will be prepaid, allowing users to cancel at any time, and will include access to AT&T's WiFi network. Users can activate the wireless service directly on the device.

A WiFi-only version of the iPad will be available in two months, while the WiFi/3G version will be available in three months. A physical keyboard will be available separately.

The WiFi-only devices will be sold for $499 for a 16 GB model, $599 for 32 GB and $699 for 64 GB. The 3G models will run at $629 for the 16 GB model, $729 for the 32 GB and $829 for 64 GB version. Jobs said the company would detail international 3G carrier deals by June or July. The device is fully unlocked and supports GSM micro-SIM cards.

The iPad has a 9.7-inch capacitive, fingerprint-resistant touchscreen display, is 0.5 inches thick, weighs 1.5 lbs. and is powered by a 1 GHz processor built by Apple. The device has built-in speakers and a microphone, but no camera, and can get up 10 hours of battery life when surfing the Web on WiFi.

The question is now: Can AT&T handle the additional data load? Its struggle with the data onslaught from iPhone users has been well documented. During a conference call discussing the company's quarterly results, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said Apple was confident the operator will make significant progress toward improving service after reviewing AT&T's plans. 

For more:
- see these photos
- read this release
- take a look at this Bloomberg article
- check out this Engadget live blog
- see this WSJ live blog

Related Articles:
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Analyst says media conflicts will halt Verizon iPhone deal

Exponential data growth calls for revolutionary carrier service strategies. Expanding 3G footprint and capacity is only part of the solution, said Keith Mallinson, head of wireless consulting firm WiseHarbor. In addition to deploying faster radio, backhaul and core network technologies for additional capacity and coverage, mobile operators also need to rethink their associated IT systems strategies. Techniques such as traffic shaping with deep packet inspection are essential to temper peak bandwidth requirements and so that tiered services and pricing can be offered. Commentary