Howard Buskirk

5G fixed wireless access will experience continuing growth in the U.S. and expand globally, panelists said during an Opensignal webinar Thursday. While FWA took off in the U.S. first, led by T-Mobile and Verizon, it’s spreading worldwide.

FCC commissioners will vote July 18 on a notice seeking comment on uniform, industrywide handset unlocking requirements, as expected (see 2406250049), FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced Wednesday in her Note from the FCC. Commissioners will also vote on a controversial proposal allowing schools and libraries to use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services, a plan to cut the cost of correctional institution phone rates and rules to improve video programming accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing. Next-generation 911 rounds out the agenda.

The FCC moved quickly and effectively to clamp down on a January robocall that created a deepfake of the voice of President Joe Biden urging recipients to skip the New Hampshire primary (see 2402060087). However, preventing similar fakes may prove more difficult, Greg Bohl, chief data officer at Transaction Network Services, warned the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee Wednesday. CAC is focused on AI this term (see 2404040040).

Amateur radio operators were the most prolific commenters to an FCC Public Safety Bureau request for comment on the effects of the May 7-11 geomagnetic storm. Responses were due Monday in docket 24-161 (see 2405240046). Amateurs submitted most of the 17 comments. “Developing an ability to better predict storms such as the … 2024 geomagnetic storm is essential to prevent serious disruptions to our nation’s communications services as well as to the electric grids that power them,” the American Radio Relay League said. The storm “affected amateur radio communications as expected, with radio black outs between many areas of the world and signals with substantially reduced strength between other areas of the world, depending upon frequency and time,” ARRL said. NOAA said the storm touched some of its systems. “With the growing interdependence on spectrum across critical infrastructure systems, there is increased potential vulnerability to space weather,” NOAA said. The agency said “several specific examples can be seen of systems operating erratically due to the geomagnetic storms,” including farm equipment running in circles “due to loss of navigational signals.” SpaceX satellites “measured two-to-three times more drag than normal in orbits at 300 km and as much as five times more drag in orbits at 550 km,” it said. SpaceX was “fortunately able to maintain service throughout the May solar storm,” and on the day the storm peaked, “the average Starlink user saw less than one minute of disruption.” Iridium’s second-generation constellation “experienced an instantaneous, but short lived, increase in the atmospheric drag up to 10 times greater than normal” during the storm, the company reported. Iridium said it continuously monitors its system and was able to address the storm's issues: “The monitoring for this storm was not new, although more engineers were required to be engaged because each of the six planes in the constellation has a different angle from the sun, and experienced different impacts from the storm.”

Public interest, consumer groups and two providers called on the FCC Tuesday to launch a proceeding that examines “uniform, industrywide” handset unlocking requirements. Industry officials said they expect Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to circulate a notice this week examining the issue for a vote at the July 18 commission meeting. The Open Technology Institute at New America, Consumer Reports, Public Knowledge and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, as well as Verizon and EchoStar, parent of Dish Wireless, signed the joint letter.

Policymakers have a better appreciation for the importance of standards as the telecom industry moves closer to the launch of 6G, experts said Tuesday during a 6G workshop streamed from the Technology & Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Experts warned that standards development is complicated and always is a lengthy process.

Vodafone and other wireless carriers have a ways to go to deploy 5G and are in no hurry to get to 6G, David Lister, Vodafone 6G research lead, said Monday during a 6G workshop streamed at the Technology & Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

T-Mobile and the Competitive Carriers Association last week said the FCC should make FirstNet subject to the agency’s network outage and disaster information reporting systems. The comments were filed in docket 21-341 as the FCC took reply comments on a January Further NPRM, which raised the matter (see 2406130023). "Every other commenter -- except FirstNet -- addressing this issue also supported the extension of outage reporting requirements to FirstNet,” T-Mobile said. The carrier cited AT&T’s February outage, which also affected FirstNet (see 2402220058). “The record demonstrates support for the FCC’s proposal to extend resiliency reporting to FirstNet and similarly notes the benefits FirstNet reporting would provide,” said CCA. In addition, the group raised competition issues: “Some wireless providers compete with FirstNet, and parity in terms of FCC reporting requirements along with increased transparency in terms of network outages and resiliency will put wireless providers on a more competitively neutral footing.” In initial comments, the FirstNet Authority argued against the proposed requirement. “Information about FirstNet’s network status, infrastructure, and assets is already included as part of AT&T’s DIRS and NORS reporting and therefore available to the FCC,” the authority said. Expanding the rules to “explicitly apply to FirstNet would be duplicative.”

CTIA and other commenters raised concerns about an FCC notice seeking comment on rules for implementing multilingual wireless emergency alerts. Comments were due last week in dockets 15-91 and 15-94 on a notice from the FCC Public Safety Bureau (see 2405130047).

Industry commenters urged the FCC to avoid imposing additional outage reporting requirements. Reply comments to a January Further NPRM (see 2401250064) were filed this week in docket 21-346.