American Tower will buy two portfolios of towers in Brazil from TIM Celular. The first includes about 5,240 towers, and the second includes about 1,240 towers, American Tower said Friday in a news release. American Tower anticipates the towers will generate more than $170 million in annual run rate revenue, it said.

An agreement between wireless carriers and public safety organizations proposing to help improve 911 location accuracy doesn't "do what it purports to do," an attorney for TruePosition said. Numerous stakeholders, including public safety representatives, and members of the emergency medical community "have all specifically criticized the agreement and supported the FCC adopting its proposed rules," Venable attorney Jamie Barnett said in an ex parte filing posted in docket 07-114. He referred to the consensus plan among AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, the APCO and the National Emergency Number Association filed last week (see 1411190064). It's a misnomer to call it a consensus since groups like the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the National Association of State EMS Officials "had the opportunity to review and sign the agreement but declined to do so," he said. The carriers set benchmarks, not for dispatchable address, but "for the adoption of technologies that they purport, without evidence, will be better than what they use now," he said. The filing was on a meeting with Public Safety Bureau staff.

CTIA, wireless carriers and public safety organizations reviewed proposals in a 911 location accuracy consensus plan with staff from FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's office. The plan was filed last week by CTIA and drafted by large wireless carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile, the APCO and the National Emergency Number Association (see 1411190064). The parties highlighted the formation of a test bed, "dispatchable" location commitments, "steps to advance vertical location technologies providing back-up solutions for indoor calls" and other aspects, CTIA said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 07-114. The filing pertains to a meeting with Erin McGrath, aide to O'Rielly.

AWS-3 auction prices are a positive for spectrum owners like Globalstar and Sprint, said New Street Research analysts Friday in a research note. The auction demonstrates that the value of marginal spectrum is higher than everyone thought, and that “mid-band [spectrum] no longer trades at a discount to low-band,” they said. Globalstar’s spectrum has a unique utility, making it difficult to extrapolate values for traditional wireless spectrum to its spectrum, they said. But “what their spectrum offers is capacity, and capacity is worth more today than the market realized yesterday,” they said. Auction 97 began last week.

NextNav commends any cooperative effort to investigate new approaches to improving indoor next-generation 911 location accuracy but is concerned that the discussions about a consensus plan released this week lacked inclusiveness and measurable near-term results. NextNav referred to a plan for improved location accuracy technology led by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and public safety organizations (see 1411190064). "Although the sincerity of the signatories is clear, the likely positive outcome is less so," NextNav said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-114. The road map ignores the long-standing position of first responders and others "that the availability of vertical location information in multistory urban environments is of critical importance to their constituency," it said. It also fails to address indoor location accuracy performance, it said. The ultimate responsibility for location accuracy for an emergency call would be spread over a "multiplicity of parties" that don't share the carriers' historic license obligations or the public safety sector's requirements for reliability and dependability, NextNav said.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau seeks comment on a next-generation 911 location accuracy consensus plan submitted by the four largest wireless carriers, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials and the National Emergency Number Association. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and the public safety entities filed the plan Tuesday (see 1411190064). Initial comments are due Dec. 10, and replies are due Dec. 17, the bureau said Thursday in a public notice.

Integrated Device Technology announced a new family of magnetic induction wireless power transmitters for next-generation wireless charging products to be used in wearables, furniture and smartphones. The P9235 and P9236 transmitters are compliant with the latest Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) Qi standard, and the P9234 is a Power Matters Alliance (PMA)-compliant device, it said Thursday. IDT is also introducing a proprietary-mode device that operates at up to 1 MHz of resonance frequency, allowing for a smaller coil, IDT said. The P9230A dual-mode transmitter supports WPC and PMA standards, it said. IDT customers are designing wireless power transmitters into a variety of applications, including mobile phone charging pad stations and wearable applications, said Arman Naghavi, general manager-analog and power division. The new lineup offers customers “greater programmability, ease of use and reduced overall development cost for faster product introduction,” he said. Although this round of transmitters doesn’t support Rezence, the standard from the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), an IDT spokesman told us the company is working with a limited group of qualified customers on magnetic resonance charging. IDT said in September it's working with Intel on developing wireless charging solutions based on magnetic resonance that are expected to be in the market next year. Capabilities touted by the A4WP charging technology include simultaneous charging of lower and higher power devices and the integration of charging devices into tabletops, the companies said. Meanwhile, 17.5 million cars with wireless chargers are expected to sell in 2020, IHS said Thursday. The global market for in-car wireless charging is projected to top $600 million in 2020, it said.

Starbucks launched Duracell Powermat wireless charging Wednesday in about 200 San Francisco-area stores, the coffee retailer said in an announcement. It marks the first step in the company’s "strategic plan" to offer Powermat throughout the U.S., and "to explore rollouts in Europe and Asia within the year," it said. Bay Area stores have designated areas on tables and counters where customers can place their compatible devices and charge them wirelessly, it said. Customers also can buy Powermat "rings" for $9.99 that instantly upgrade any phone to wireless charging compatibility, it said. Alternatively, the rings can be borrowed and returned on a per-visit basis, it said.

T-Mobile is offering existing customers a free Alcatel Onetouch Pop 7 tablet beginning Friday, through Dec. 1, when they sign up for a qualifying data plan in what it called an early Black Friday deal. The tablet's regular price is $7 per month over 24 months for a total of $168, it said. The offer, which doesn’t include sales tax, extends to non-customers Saturday while supplies last, the carrier said. T-Mobile’s MetroPCS brand launched a limited-time buy-one-get-one-free deal Wednesday on a range of 4G LTE phones with the caveat that a new line is activated on the free phone, it said. The offer runs through Monday.

Consumer intentions to buy smart watches soared in recent months, said a consumer research report released Wednesday by Futuresource Consulting. The firm canvassed a total of 8,000 consumers in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. in two "waves" -- once in May and again in October -- and found interest in buying a smart watch jumped 125 percent between the two waves, it said. Consumer intentions to buy fitness trackers jumped 50 percent, it said. However, interest in smart glasses and heart rate monitors has "stalled," it said. "The overall wearables market has seen significant growth so far in 2014, with Futuresource forecasting full year sales of more than 51 million units worldwide," the company said. "However, it's only just warming up, and wearables sales are expected to accelerate from 2015 as new brands enter the space." The "most marked change" since May is the strong growth in the number of iPhone owners intending to purchase wearable devices, Futuresource said. In terms of purchase intentions on wearables, "iPhone owners now lead the way in all categories," particularly in smart watches, which 17 percent of iPhone owners expressed an intent to purchase in the next 12 months, up from only 6 percent in May 2014, it said. "This increase coincides with September's announcement of the Apple Watch. As Apple customers are typically some of the earliest adopters of new technologies, their increasing engagement with the smart watch category is a strong positive for the Apple Watch release in early 2015."