The U.S. “faces a fork in the road” on wireless, and the spectrum that will be made available under the reconciliation package “comes none too soon,” new CTIA President Ajit Pai said Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas. Pai warned that a lot of work remains to get more licensed spectrum in play. “Identifying bands and setting an ambitious target is not the same as making spectrum available.”
Much of the discussion Tuesday was on AI during the Day 1 keynote addresses at the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas (see 2510140032), just as it was a dominant theme for the MWC earlier this year in Barcelona (see 2503200051). Speakers agreed that the wireless industry will play a major role as AI unfolds.
The FCC appears unlikely to make any moves to enforce the data privacy rules approved under the Biden administration, which were recently upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, industry experts said Friday. Last week, the panel that decided the case agreed to hold it in abeyance pending the FCC’s review of the 2023 order, as the agency requested. The panel ordered the FCC to file status reports every 60 days, with the first due Dec. 16.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr this week circulated revised incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) rules that could drive up the price of calls by as much as 80% or more, said industry officials engaged in the proceeding. In interviews Thursday, they also questioned how they can even raise concerns ahead of the Oct. 28 open meeting, given the federal government’s partial shutdown.
DOJ and the FCC asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected a $57 million FCC fine against AT&T for violating the agency's data protection rules. The 5th Circuit ruled in April that the fine was unconstitutional because it denied AT&T's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The 2nd Circuit later upheld a similar fine against Verizon, while the D.C. Circuit upheld one against T-Mobile (see 2509100056).
Innovation in wireless and 6G is dependent on whether carriers deploy open, cloud-based, disaggregated networks, said Milap Majmundar, director of advanced radio access network technology, standards and spectrum at AT&T Labs, at an RCR Wireless 6G conference Wednesday. Open radio access networks (ORAN) “are here to stay,” he said.
Americans want the broadband speeds that come with fiber everywhere, but satisfying that demand isn’t possible, said telecom consultant Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman of the Carmel Group, during a Broadband Breakfast webinar Wednesday. Other speakers said the U.S. should keep focusing on deploying fiber to as many locations as possible.
In Verizon’s first big move under new CEO Dan Schulman, the carrier announced Wednesday that it plans to acquire Starry, a company that offers next-generation fixed-wireless broadband. Industry experts said regulators are unlikely to ask too many questions about the deal.
Telecom networks are seeing fundamental changes as they're upgraded to 5G and eventually 6G, telecom executives said during an RCR Wireless 6G forum Tuesday. Experts stressed that more than ever, networks must be agile and able to change quickly to address evolving customer demands.
A coalition of 24 members of Congress, led by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., urged the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear en banc an August decision that upheld the FCC’s data breach notification rules, despite a Congressional Review Act action in 2017 that overturned similar requirements in other privacy rules (see 2508140052). Right-leaning interest groups also asked for rehearing, as sought by ISPs (see 2509290066). Briefs were filed Monday in case 24-3133.