Howard Buskirk

Use cases and how carriers will make money from their massive investments in 5G and advanced networks are still taking shape, experts said Tuesday during RCR Wireless’s virtual 5G monetization forum. They repeatedly encouraged providers to be as flexible as possible.

Use of Wi-Fi has grown to a huge extent, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, experts said Monday during the virtual Fierce Wireless Wi-Fi Summit. But speakers disagreed how quickly adoption of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi, through Wi-Fi 6E, will happen as other bands become more crowded. Commissioners approved an order in April 2020 (see 2004230059) allocating 1,200 MHz in the band for sharing with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use, and other countries followed the U.S. lead.

The number of items the FCC is considering at its monthly meetings has slowly declined in the two years since Jessica Rosenworcel was designated to lead the agency. The January meeting was over in about half an hour and had two items for votes. Similarly, Rosenworcel has teed up just two items for this month's meeting. A review of the record found the FCC tackled 59 items, large and small, at meetings the first year under Rosenworcel. That was down to 42 in year two. In more than half the meetings in year two, commissioners tackled three or fewer items at the meetings.

Fourteen months after proponents of cellular-vehicle-to-everything use of the 5.9 GHz band asked the FCC for the first waivers so they could start to deploy (see 2112140070), action appears imminent. The FCC has drafted a waiver order, but it’s still at the NTIA for review, officials confirmed. Industry is also still waiting for final rules for the 5.9 GHz band.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project's Release 18 is the start of the second phase of 5G, 5G-advanced, though work is about to start on Release 19, industry experts said Thursday during an ATIS webinar. As industry starts a new phase it should look at current commercial deployment needs, plus “the long-term 5G vision,” said Wanshi Chen, chair of the 3GPP radio access network plenary and Qualcomm senior director-technology. 3GPP in-person meetings restarted last year, which was “quite an achievement” following the COVID-19 pandemic, though the pandemic slowed the group’s work by several months, he said. It’s important to “evolve 5G” so industry can address current use cases better or even create new use cases, he said. Work on Release 19 is expected to start in Q1 of 2024, though preparation will start with the first workshop in June in Taiwan, Chen said: “We’ll have the first collection of information that people have in mind for Release 19. It will be interesting to see how things will be proposed.” Puneet Jain, chair of the 3GPP System Architecture Group (SA-2), said at the start of Release 18 SA-2 approved a record 27 study items, all of which are now complete. Release 18 “expands the market reach of 5G technology by adding new features, such as artificial intelligence and extended reality to enable highly intelligent network solutions that can support a wider variety of use cases than ever before,” said Jain, also a senior principal engineer at Intel. The latest release includes features for public safety and satellite communications and the IoT, he said. These requirements couldn’t be addressed in Release 17 because of limited time, he said. Jain expects the timeline for Release 19 to start to take shape in March and be finalized at the meeting in Taiwan. “We have to have a timeline decided first and then, basically, move on to the content discussion,” he said.

T-Mobile confirmed it added a net 927,000 postpaid phone subscribers in Q4, and 3.1 million for the year, more than both AT&T and Verizon. CEO Mike Sievert promised T-Mobile’s growth will continue in 2023 despite what he predicted will be a challenging year. Sievert also defended how the carrier handled a recent data breach, which the FCC is investigating (see 2301200047).

Working through a series of items on the use of the 5030-5091 MHz band by drones will likely take years, Hogan Lovells’ Ari Fitzgerald warned during a webinar Tuesday by the FCBA’s Florida Chapter. The FCC released an NPRM in January on use of the band by unmanned aircraft systems (see 2301040046) though comments dates haven’t been set.

The outlook for both the lower and upper 12 GHz bands remain unclear, with the FCC and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel providing little guidance in recent months on next steps in either band. The 5G for 12 GHz Coalition has been relatively quiet this year and there have been few filings in docket 20-443 exploring the lower band.

Anna Gomez's appointment to lead U.S. preparations for the next World Radiocommunication Conference is considered positive for U.S. efforts at the upcoming conference. The State Department announced the six-month appointment Thursday (see 2301260072). It didn't mention she also would be given “presidential” ambassador rank, but industry officials told us that designation is likely coming, though it has to wait to avoid the need for Senate confirmation. WRC starts Nov. 20 at the Dubai World Trade Centre in the United Arab Emirates.

Telecom providers worldwide vary widely on how far they have gone toward a goal of building networks with zero carbon emissions, speakers said at a TelecomTV virtual green network summit, which ended Thursday. European providers, on average, appear further along than those in the U.S., speakers said.