Samsung is sending mixed messages on its choice of operating systems for wearables, DisplaySearch analyst Paul Gray said in a blog post Thursday. “The announcement that Samsung’s latest generation of wearables will use Android Wear raises interesting questions about its software strategy,” Gray said. This after Samsung, with its Gear 2 smart watch, had “made the switch to the Tizen platform, which appeared to be Samsung’s strategic direction,” Gray said. Gray speculated Samsung will make the “return” to Android Wear to “maximize interoperability with other smartphones,” or because it realized that development efforts are vested in the software, not the hardware. Of that realization, Gray said, Samsung “has demonstrated its ability to develop products faster than its competition. However this has largely been in hardware. If the real R&D effort lies in software, then it questions whether Samsung still has the aces in its hand.” Samsung has shown it’s determined to “evolve rapidly to find a winning formula” in wearables, Gray said. “However the switch to Android Wear suggests that interoperability and off-the-shelf software are more valuable than uniqueness. This will in turn feed through into a vibrant app environment for consumers.” Samsung representatives didn’t immediately comment.

The FCC Wireless Bureau said it’s extending from Aug. 11 to Aug. 29 the deadline for reply comments on a T-Mobile petition seeking greater clarity in the commission’s data roaming rules (CD May 28 p9). T-Mobile is asking for a declaratory ruling containing guidance and “predictable” enforcement criteria for determining whether the terms of data roaming agreements meet the “commercially reasonable” standard adopted by the commission in its 2011 data roaming order. Blooston Rural Carriers, NTCA and the Rural Wireless Association had sought an extension until Aug. 25, citing a “significant number of rural mobile wireless carriers that have been affected by the issues addressed in T-Mobile’s petition,” the bureau said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1jVM8Uz). The bureau said there’s “good cause to grant a short extension of time,” and T-Mobile has agreed to the extension.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau said it will hold in abeyance a request for a further waiver by Miami-Dade County, Florida, of the original June 26, 2008, deadline for completion of the rebanding of its 800 MHz radios. Sprint had requested the FCC ask several questions of the county before extending the waiver, the bureau said Wednesday. Sprint had said the rebanding had started in 2005 and “it is the last licensee, excepting those in border states, to return frequencies in the ‘old’ NPSPAC band to Sprint,” the bureau said. Much of the delay is attributable to Miami-Dade’s decision to replace, rather than reband, its 800 MHz communications system, the bureau said (http://bit.ly/Utj8Ye). “We impress on Miami-Dade the imperative of completing its firmware reprogramming in the shortest feasible time."

CWave, an ultrawideband (UWB) technology developed by Pulse~LINK, can help to solve some of the most significant issues facing the FCC, company CEO Brady Buckley, Chief Technology Officer John Santhoff and Vice President-Engineering Greg Elmassian told FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp; Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne; Walter Johnston, chief of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Division; and other officials from the Policy and Rules Division, the OET and the Wireline Competition Bureau, according to an ex parte notice (http://bit.ly/1qAf9rN) posted in docket 13-184 Wednesday. CWave provides a second, independent ethernet layer that can be used to lay an additional data path over existing coaxial or copper networks, without interfering with existing content, company officials said at the meeting Monday. The technology can be used on the existing coaxial cable found in most schools to distribute large bandwidth to classrooms; offers an affordable alternative for rural and small-town cable systems to upgrade to gigabit data speeds; and allows a service provider to use the technology over existing coaxial cable to offer broadband services without disturbing the incumbent cable provider, the filing said. Douglas Dawson, president of CCG Consulting, and Jim Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group also participated in the meeting.

The alleged perpetrator of a text message scamming scheme agreed to settle FTC charges over sending false text messages promising $1,000 gift cards in exchange for personal information, the FTC said in a Tuesday release (http://1.usa.gov/1uc6LQQ). The monetary judgment in the settlement, $2,863,000, will be mostly suspended due to the defendant Verma Holdings’ inability to pay. The settlement, approved unanimously by the commissioners, closes one of numerous FTC charges filed against 29 defendants in March 2013 over similar texting scams (http://1.usa.gov/1rtmMym).

Dutch-based supplier AVG Technologies is claiming it devised one of the first apps optimized for the Dynamic Perspective feature on the Amazon Fire Phone, which gets released Thursday through AT&T. Amazon has called Dynamic Perspective its biggest differentiator in setting the Fire Phone apart from other smartphones. The AVG Alarm Clock Xtreme app’s alarm clock and stopwatch features are controlled with simple head gestures, making “selecting snooze or turning off the alarm an easy and immersive experience” using Dynamic Perspective, AVG said Wednesday. The app “incorporates movements like nodding and shaking your head, and other physical gestures such as left to right movement, to communicate commands to the app,” it said. The app will be available free from the Amazon store, it said.

AT&T had its lowest postpaid customer churn ever in the second quarter, at 0.86 percent, it said Wednesday. The carrier also reported postpaid net adds of more than 1 million, the most in a quarter in nearly five years (http://soc.att.com/1pHpugE). Q2 consolidated revenue was $32.6 billion, up 1.6 percent over the year-earlier quarter. AT&T has about $6 billion cash on hand, headed into the AWS-3 auction, said John Stephens, AT&T chief financial officer. AT&T’s buy of DirecTV was approved without restrictions by Brazil’s antitrust regulator, he said. The carrier also completed the review process, without conditions, at the state level, which included Arizona, Hawaii and Louisiana, he said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau Tuesday imposed a penalty of $10,400 against Washington Gas Light for violating FCC rules requiring lighting on communications antennas. In 2011, the bureau had proposed a $13,000 fine against the gas utility for the violation. The bureau said Washington Gas maintains it notified the Federal Aviation Administration when a lighting outage occurred in 2010 and reminded the FCC it has a history of compliance with agency rules. “While we are not persuaded that Washington Gas notified the FAA of the lighting outage in a timely manner, we find that its history of compliance warrants a forfeiture reduction,” the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1r3IHtJ).

Verizon is focused on the need to “build cash on the balance sheet” to prepare for the FCC’s AWS-3 auction, Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said Tuesday during a call with investors. Shammo said Verizon for obvious reasons would not have much to say about how much it plans to spend in the AWS-3 auction, scheduled to get underway Nov. 13. Shammo also declined to say much at all about the TV incentive auction, saying the rules haven’t been finalized. “It’s hard for us to sit here and make a comment on something that has not been finalized,” he said. Verizon is aggressively managing the debt it carries, Shammo said. “You have seen us be very proactive in the marketplace, taking the opportunity of the low interest rate market, repositioning the debt that we borrowed at the close and repositioning our towers so we are strategically trying to push out the long-term debt longer at a more fixed, lower rate than we had,” he said. Verizon reported second quarter earnings Tuesday (http://vz.to/1nywpLS). The carrier reported $1.01 in earnings per share in Q2 on operating revenue of $31.5 billion.

CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association called the release of the FCC’s AWS-3 Coordination Public Notice Friday (CD July 21 p12) an important step forward toward a successful auction. CCA President Steve Berry said he hopes the FCC will soon release a procedures public notice as well. “To determine whether to participate, CCA’s members need sufficient time and adequate information about the coordination process,” Berry said. “Maximizing information for prospective bidders, and maximizing timely access for AWS-3 licenses will be essential to ensuring that these bands are put to their highest use,” said Scott Bergmann, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs. Verizon Federal Regulatory Affairs Senior Vice President Kathy Grillo called the notice “an important step” toward making necessary information available to bidders and “establishing a clear and predictable post-auction coordination process.”