The Los Angeles Police Department was granted an extension until June 30 to submit a cost estimate for reconfiguring its 800 MHz communications system to Sprint and the 800 MHz Transition Administrator, said an FCC Public Safety Bureau order Wednesday (http://fcc.us/1pU8GUf). It said LAPD said its planning activities were complicated by difficulties in validating the subscriber inventory.

A request by El Paso, Texas, for an extension to submit to Sprint and the 800 MHz Transition Administrator a cost estimate for reconfiguring the city’s 800 MHz communications system was denied by the FCC Public Safety Bureau Thursday. Rather than reconfigure its existing 800 MHz analog system, El Paso opted to upgrade to digital technology, the FCC order (http://bit.ly/1ogKiNw) said. The city said 98 percent of the digital system is constructed, but despite previous FCC extensions, it has not yet finished a planning agreement with its vendor, Motorola Solutions, or received final approval for the agreement from city officials, the order said. The cost estimate is due by July 31.

Adoption of next-gen “802.11 2x2 Multiple-In Multiple-Out” (MIMO) Wi-Fi technology on smartphones is on the rise, said a study by IHS Technology. MIMO technology uses multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver ends to signal range and improve performance between devices, IHS said. Smartphone OEMs are gravitating to 2x2 MIMO technology, which employs two transmitter antennas and two receiver antennas, it said Wednesday. “The improved capabilities of 2x2 MIMO make Wi-Fi a suitable alternative to 3G and 4G wireless networks.” IHS sees global smartphone shipments doubling to 1.9 billion units in 2018 from 1 billion in 2013, and all but a tiny fraction of all mobile handsets in 2018 will support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Samsung’s Galaxy S5 was the first smartphone to support 2X2 MIMO, and other makers are expected to follow Samsung’s lead, “due to a growing need for better-performing Wi-Fi in smartphones,” it said.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology asked for comment on an application by Medimetrics Personalized Drug Delivery for a waiver allowing the marketing, sale and operation of its medical device trademarked as the IntelliCap Portable Unit. The device connects an electronic capsule swallowed by a patient to a central control unit, typically a laptop computer, and can be used to pump drugs into the body at a specific location, said the company (http://philips.to/1hb5jIJ). The waiver would be needed to accommodate the capsule’s small antenna that requires the use of higher power limits than now allowed to connect the pill to the control unit, OET said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1iXAy57). The connections use 433 MHz and 2.4 GHz spectrum. Comments are due July 7, replies July 21, in docket 14-84.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau agreed to a request by CTIA that the agency extend by 30 days the June 11 deadline for reply comments on proposed changes to the commission’s wireless location accuracy rules. The new deadline is July 14. Under rules proposed in February (CD Feb 21 p1) carriers for the first time would have to meet standards for wireless calls made from indoors. The extension “is warranted to provide commenters with sufficient time to prepare reply comments that fully respond to the complex technical, economic, and policy issues raised” by the FCC, the bureau said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/Ucg7fH).

T-Mobile fired back at a Minority Media & Telecom Council filing opposing the carrier’s request that the FCC impose more stringent parties-in-interest disclosure requirements as part of process reform. “The record remains devoid of any information regarding the prevalence of non-disclosure or how it materially affects the regulatory process,” MMTC said in a May 8 filing (http://bit.ly/1hb7cVO). “MMTC’s suggestion that the Commission is so different from the federal courts because it knows everyone practicing before it, and the courts do not, is exaggerated and misses the point,” T-Mobile said (http://bit.ly/1x8uiRM). Certain courts, particularly the Supreme Court, “are quite familiar with a small cast of regular players,” but still require disclosure, T-Mobile said. “Second, the Commission’s familiarity with some participating parties does not obviate the need for disclosure.” The filing was posted by the FCC Wednesday in docket 10-43.

Amdocs said T-Mobile US subsidiary MetroPCS is using its Amdocs Enterprise Payment Processing system as part of MetroPCS’s multi-year agreement to use Amdocs products to “optimize its customers’ electronic payment options.” The Amdocs products will help reduce MetroPCS’s costs associated with customer payments, Amdocs said. The Enterprise Payment Process system allows the use of “smart tender steering” to process payments in the most cost-effective way possible. The system interfaces with multiple banks, financial institutions and contact center services, Amdocs said.

The FCC said Monday it’s opening the pleading cycle on AT&T’s proposed buy of all 19 of Sprint’s A block and B block Wireless Communications Service (WCS) spectrum licenses (http://bit.ly/1hWUwwO), which was announced in May (CD May 16 p13). It would give AT&T 10-20 MHz of WCS spectrum in 153 cellular market areas in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, the FCC said. Petitions to deny are due by July 2; oppositions to those petitions July 14. Replies to oppositions are due July 21, the FCC said.

A New York magistrate judge’s ruling ordering the federal government to institute privacy protections for innocent third parties when obtaining cellphone location information through so-called “tower dumps” is a “step forward,” said the American Civil Liberties Union in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1osYWze) Monday. The ACLU disagreed with another aspect of U.S. Magistrate Judge James Francis’ May 30 decision (case no. M-50) (http://1.usa.gov/TaoAzd) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Francis didn’t require authorities to show probable cause through obtaining a warrant when seeking “tower dump” records, ACLU noted. The practice, which involves getting location information for all cellphones from select towers during a set period of time, doesn’t constitute authorities tracking a person’s movements over a period of time, the decision said. Francis was the second federal judge to issue a public ruling on the practice, said the ACLU. The ruling involved a request in early May seeking permission to obtain AT&T, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless records for some cell towers near a New York City address over more than a four-hour period, noted ACLU. Saying thousands of people would likely have made phone calls in the area during the time period, ACLU said it opposed the request as “a highly invasive dragnet search.” Francis ordered the government to submit a plan to address the protection of private information of innocent third-parties whose data is disclosed to the government. The request for the records will be approved if the plan is sufficient, he said.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and the International, Public Safety and Wireless bureaus will host a workshop on GPS protection and receiver performance June 20. The workshop will be in the Commission Meeting Room, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the FCC said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1p5rBvr). The objectives include the importance of GPS operations, particularly to critical infrastructure and public safety users, and the benefits of Global Navigation Satellite System operations, it said. Panels will discuss a path forward and critical infrastructure and public safety, it said. The workshop will stream online at www.fcc.gov/live, it said.