A new study by CTIA and Recon Analytics questions whether citizens broadband radio service spectrum, often cited as the potential sharing model of the future, is a suitable replacement for exclusive, licensed spectrum. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is moving on release of a national spectrum strategy (see 2209260048). Carriers already said they hope the strategy will lay out bands that can be cleared for licensed use. Wi-Fi advocates fired back.
Howard Buskirk
Howard Buskirk, Executive Senior Editor, joined Warren Communications News in 2004, after covering Capitol Hill for Telecommunications Reports. He has covered Washington since 1993 and was formerly executive editor at Energy Business Watch, editor at Gas Daily and managing editor at Natural Gas Week. Previous to that, he was a staff reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Greenville News. Follow Buskirk on Twitter: @hbuskirk
Pockets of the U.S. served by T-Mobile remain LTE only, but “the vast majority” of the network is now 5G, said Neville Ray, T-Mobile president-technology, during a New Street and Boston Consulting conference Monday. Ray said in some areas T-Mobile is leaning on a roaming agreement with AT&T, which has opened up some rural markets through its FirstNet build. T-Mobile’s 5G build hit a peak this year and the company will shift “to what we call customer-driven coverage … making sure that we are investing where it really matters, where there is differentiated need for new coverage or additional coverage from T-Mobile,” Ray said. That includes more in-building coverage and some locations T-Mobile hasn’t yet reached, he said. Ray also noted T-Mobile’s work with SpaceX on satellite connections (see 2209150072). The service will be “text- and messaging-based in the early running” but will evolve to provide more “ubiquitous connectivity,” he said. T-Mobile should be positioned to support as many as 8 million fixed wireless customers in 2025, Ray said. “There is a lot of latent demand for the product that we are bringing to the marketplace,” he said: “From a capacity perspective, we have always been very careful and diligent to make sure that we grow this network for fixed wireless in the right places.” T-Mobile announced Monday that it's now lighting up its stand-alone (SA) core network with its 2.5 GHz spectrum. The SA network has been using 600 MHz spectrum since 2020, Ray said. “The move immediately advances T-Mobile’s network -- unleashing faster speeds for customers across the country while further reducing any lag in the network with lower latency, improving applications like gaming that require near real-time responsiveness,” T-Mobile said.
With an FCC commissioner vote scheduled for Thursday on improving the delivery of outage information to public safety answering points (see 2210270067), a few tweaks remain possible to the FCC’s approach, industry officials said. The 10th floor is still considering filings made at the end of last week seeking a few changes to the draft order, officials said. APCO filed late last week and other filings were expected (see 2211100051).
AT&T protested granting T-Mobile additional mid-band licenses in the 2.5 GHz band because of the carrier’s already huge position in the band. T-Mobile dominated the recent auction, winning 7,156 licenses for $304.3 million, about 90% of the available spectrum (see 2209010060). AT&T filed the protest earlier this week in the FCC’s universal licensing system, asking the agency to reject T-Mobile’s long-form application for the licenses. “T-Mobile already far exceeds the Commission’s spectrum screen in many areas and holds far more spectrum than even T-Mobile thinks it needs,” AT&T said: “Its spectrum holdings are particularly disproportionate in the mid-band frequencies that the Commission has deemed ‘critical’ to any provider’s ‘5G buildout due to its desirable coverage, capacity, and propagation characteristics.’” T-Mobile’s extensive holdings “threaten long-term competition for mobile broadband services, as T-Mobile openly acknowledges in its investor presentations,” AT&T said. Commission orders have “reflected too little attention to T-Mobile’s acknowledged plan to dominate mid-band spectrum to the detriment of competition,” AT&T charged. T-Mobile “was permitted to acquire spectrum-rich Sprint in 2019 and exceed the spectrum screen in hundreds of localities, all without any spectrum divestitures or even a market-by-market analysis of the potential harm to competition,” AT&T said: “Since the merger, T-Mobile has acquired substantial C-Band and 3.45 GHz assets even as it told investors that it did not need that new mid-band spectrum to compete, and it completed those purchases, too, without effective regulatory scrutiny.” The FCC also “rejected proposals by AT&T and others to open the 2.5 GHz band to genuine bidding competition, opting instead for T-Mobile’s preferred approach,” the filing said. T-Mobile didn't comment.
APCO officials raised concerns about a draft FCC order on rules to improve delivery of outage information to public safety answering points, set for a commissioner vote next week (see 2210270067). A filing on a meeting with Public Safety Bureau staff wasn't posted by the FCC. CTIA, the Competitive Carriers Association and other groups are also expected to raise industry concerns. “Emergency communications centers (ECCs) should be notified of outages and disruptions that could impact communications with ECCs, even if the outage does not meet the high thresholds that trigger a notification requirement in the existing rules,” APCO said: “The draft order does not address modifying the notification thresholds. The Commission should seek information from service providers that would be helpful for modifying the notification thresholds to better align with public safety considerations and reduce the number of outages going unreported.” APCO notes among other concerns that an earlier NPRM asks about “the extent to which service providers have or could have graphical outage information and how ECCs would use such information,” the group said: “The draft order partially addresses this issue, but only with regard to the provision of geographical information system (GIS) data. This is unnecessarily limiting and fails to consider alternative methods for providing ECCs with visual information about outages. For example, emailed notifications could include an image of the affected area, and service providers could maintain web-based portals for real time network status maps.”
Ten years after the launch of wireless emergency alerts, WEAs have become a critical part of providing warnings to the public, officials said Thursday during an FCBA webinar. Speakers said WEAs have made progress since the false missile alert that created panic in Hawaii in early 2018 (see 1801160054 and 1803160042). Last month, FCC commissioners approved 4-0 an NPRM proposing new rules to make the emergency alert system and WEAs more secure (see 2210270058).
Things have been quiet on the FCC 10th floor since Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated an order with a new approach on the 4.9 GHz band, and early indications are she probably has the votes for approval. Rosenworcel circulated the order last month to establish a national band manager, which would govern the leasing process in the band, with an accompanying Further NPRM asking for feedback on details of how the leasing process could work (see 2210260064).
FirstNet has been able to build, with AT&T, a $40 billion network based on an initial $7 billion investment, said Richard Reed, FirstNet Authority network management officer, Tuesday at the hybrid in-person and virtual IEEE Advances in Public Safety Technology Workshop. The workshop is part of a new IEEE initiative on public safety technology.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, back from a whirlwind trip to Taiwan last week (see 2211020037), said the trip was a success. His goal, in part, was to “play a small role in continuing to deepen the partnership and ties between the U.S., particularly coming on the heels of last month’s Communist Party confab in Beijing,” Carr said in an interview Monday. Chinese leader Xi Jinping “continues to saber rattle and put force on the table when it comes to Taiwan,” he said: “In my view, a free and democratic Taiwan is vital to U.S. economic interest and to our national security interests. I think it’s important for all of us to continue to show support.” That support “helps Taiwan show strength and that’s a good thing for stability,” he said. Carr also said he met with officials at the National Communications Commission, the Ministry of Digital Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after meeting virtually with the country’s regulators earlier in the year. “It’s important to continue to collaborate and share our two countries’ approaches when it comes to cybersecurity and network resiliency, undersea cable issues,” he said. “I focused a lot on those issues when I was there,” he said. Carr said he spent part of one day in Hsinchu, home to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. More than 90% of more advanced chips are “manufactured right there on the island,” he said. “The role that Taiwan plays in our semiconductor industry right now and our supply chain is irreplaceable,” he said. There probably won’t be another place to get that type of advanced chipset “for probably decades to come, in terms of the breadth and depth and long-term investments necessary,” he said. The $54.2 billion Chips and Science Act, signed into law in August (see 2208090062), will help build manufacturing facilities in the U.S., but “the reality is you can’t replicate the advanced nature of the work that’s in Taiwan outside of Taiwan at this point in time,” he said. As soon as Xi calculates that China’s military capacity is greater than that of Taiwan, plus its allies, the Chinese leader will “probably make a move on Taiwan,” Carr said. “The more we can do to show our collaboration and partnerships with Taiwan, the more likely it is that we achieve cross-[Taiwan] Strait peace,” he said.
Four years after the FCC approved a declaratory ruling and order designed to speed the deployment of small cells and 5G across the U.S. (see 1809260029), and two years after the order was largely upheld in federal court, lawyers at a Monday FCBA event questioned how helpful the order really was. The FCC created two new shot clocks for small wireless facilities, 60 days for collocation on preexisting structures and 90 days for new builds, and limited fees. Now-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel partially dissented.