Howard Buskirk

Major wireless carriers have agreed to extend protections for flight operations from some C-band deployments until Jan. 1, 2028. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and UScellular filed the latest voluntary commitments Friday, posted by the FCC Monday in docket 18-122. The development comes as the U.S. wireless industry Monday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first cellphone call, placed by Martin Cooper, then a researcher at Motorola.

NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson assured attendees at an NTIA listening session on a national spectrum strategy Thursday the administration understands the need for concrete action and a spectrum pipeline for 5G and 6G. Twenty other speakers signed up to offer comments, which covered all the usual spectrum issues, from the importance of unlicensed and dedicated license spectrum to evolving sharing technologies to the potential role for THz spectrum.

The FCC’s proposed policy statement on receivers lays out core principles to “help inform the Commission’s future actions and stakeholder expectations about interference from spectrally and spatially proximate sources,” according to a draft released Thursday for the commissioners’ April 20 open meeting. The draft draws on recommendations in a 2015 report by the FCC’s Technology Advisory Council.

Fixed wireless access makes sense for providing broadband in the hardest to reach areas, said Claude Aiken, Nextlink Internet chief strategy and legal officer, Wednesday during Fierce Wireless’ virtual 5G Blitz Week. “The ability to provide broadband at capabilities, at speeds, latency, jitter, all the characteristics that consumers really care about, fixed wireless is able to meet and exceed those requirements significantly,” he said. Nextlink received more than $700 million through the Connect America and rural digital opportunity funds but faces some reductions “because we found fewer funded locations in certain areas than the FCC thought there were,” he said. The “financial haircut” affects long-term planning, timeline to deployment and the speeds Nextlink will be able to offer consumers, he said. The broadband, equity, access and deployment program has a “decidedly fiber-heavy flavor,” he said. Nextlink does fiber and fixed wireless access, but the rules work against FWA deployments, he said. Telus sees FWA as critical to its 5G plans, particularly for rural communities, said Ibrahim Gedeon, chief technology officer at the Canadian provider. Telus has 350,000 FWA customers, all in its traditional wireline service area, which is probably the most of any provider in Canada, he said. The deployments provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps “providing, actually, what we think is a healthy lifeline,” he said. As the company upgrades more customers to fiber-to-the-home, deploying more fiber, Telus is also deploying FWA, he said: “It’s clicking well. … It’s the same network.”

The FCC is taking next steps on receivers, proposing a policy statement with "high-level principles" rather than rules or standards, which some industry observers had expected (see 2301180046), at commissioners' April 20 open meeting, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday. The meeting is another busy one for the agency. The agenda includes a draft order on spectrum sharing rules among non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed satellite service (FSS) systems, which has gotten little consensus among satellite operators (see 2204270015). Commissioners will also take on additional rules to get tough on Chinese carriers still operating in the U.S.

With growing focus on the cloud and computing at the edge of networks, carriers are adopting different strategies, while trying to listen to what their customers want and need, experts said Wednesday at RCR Wireless’s Telco Cloud and Edge Forum.

The launch of 5G open cores for carrier networks is gaining momentum and in many cases will happen before stand-alone open radio access networks, experts said Tuesday during Fierce Wireless’ virtual 5G Blitz Week. They said moving operations to a 5G core offers one way for carriers to monetize their investments in 5G.

A waiver request by Samsung Electronics America for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see 2303100019) got some support at the FCC, with no one filing in opposition. Comments were posted Tuesday in docket 23-93. The FCC recently approved a similar waiver for a multiband waiver for Ericsson, and Ericsson recently sought a second waiver that parallels the Samsung request (see 2303170044). The waiver addresses out-of-band emissions limits in the CBRS band. Verizon, which noted it has significant operations in both bands, said a single radio is easier to deploy than two. “The smaller size of the multiband device, compared to two separate devices, will ease the regulatory siting process itself, enabling faster deployments,” Verizon said. A single radio will also increase energy efficiency by as much as 45% compared with two stand-alone units, the carrier said. “Multiband 5G radios incorporate multiple spectrum bands in a single radio, reducing energy consumption and resulting in a much smaller cell site footprint, thereby facilitating faster zoning review and easier siting,” Ericsson said. The Samsung petition and its follow-up petition demonstrate that the waiver of the CBRS OOBE limits “will not negatively affect operations” in either band, the company said: “Strict application of the OOBE limits at issue would not serve the public interest. The alternative would be to manufacture and install two separate radios, which would increase the time, costs, and energy consumption of deploying 5G networks.”

Most commenters agree the FCC doesn’t have legal authority under the Communications Act to regulate data breaches beyond customer proprietary network information (CPNI), CTIA said in reply comments on a January NPRM on revised rules for wireless carriers to report breaches (see 2301060057). Most commenters also supported a harm-based trigger for notifications. But the FCC faced increasing pressure to take bold action to protect consumer data.

6G is coming, but 5G Americas is sticking with that name for now, President Chris Pearson said Monday during Fierce Wireless’s virtual 5G Blitz Week. Other speakers said 5G-advanced is getting increasing attention as standards develop. “I am not ready to change our name,” Pearson said: “We have a lot of great technical innovation [to come] with 5G-advanced; let’s keep our eye on the ball.”