Safe Connections Act

NTIA urged the FCC to defer action for now on NextNav's proposal that would reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band, "enabl[ing] a high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services (see 2404160043). NextNav, meanwhile, defended the proposal but agreed testing is needed. Other commenters objected to the proposal, reflecting concerns raised in initial comments (see 2409060046). Replies were due Friday in docket 24-240; many were posted Monday.

The FCC gave the green light to extended milestone deadlines for EchoStar's 5G network buildout Friday, three days after the company filed its request (see 2409190050). EchoStar called the approval "a significant step to promote competition in the wireless market."

Based on preliminary findings, the telecom equipment market declined 16% year over year in Q2, “recording a fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit contractions,” Dell’Oro Group said in a new report. “Helping to explain the abysmal results are excess inventory, weaker demand in China, challenging 5G comparisons, and elevated uncertainty,” the report said. China saw a 17% market downturn, but Chinese gear makers Huawei and ZTE are gaining market share, Dell’Oro said. The top seven suppliers in the first half of the year were Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, ZTE, Cisco, Ciena and Samsung, the report said: “Huawei and ZTE combined gained nearly 3 percentage points of share between 2023 and 1H24.”

5G Americas released a paper looking at the ITU’s “IMT-2030 Vision” study and the “long and complex process” of developing international mobile telecommunications radio-interface standards. The Americas “must carefully decide the proper level of enhancement/performance of attributes originating in 5G,” said the paper, posted Thursday. 5G Americas noted that this is only “an initial framework, or vision for IMT-2030” and “one of the early steps in the IMT definition process.” The framework “has many details that remain to be determined: minimum levels of performance, mandatory and optional features, and which specific technologies are to be incorporated into next-generation systems,” the group said. 6G is expected to be cloud native “with computing and data services tightly integrated with the communications aspects in an inherently distributed and disaggregated fashion,” the group said. The ITU report is more than a technical document, blogged Viet Nguyen, vice president-PR and technology at 5G Americas. “It sets the stage for what will define 6G -- everything from enhanced mobile broadband to integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technologies that combine wireless communication with radar-like detection capabilities,” he said.

The FCC gave the go-ahead to EchoStar's request this week for extensions of milestones in its 5G network buildout. In a notation Friday in the FCC's Universal Licensing System, the agency said it granted the extension request contingent on EchoStar fulfilling the conditions it made with its application. EchoStar previously cited issues ranging from the pandemic's impact on supply chains to the cost of moving Boost subscribers from the legacy Sprint CDMA network to the T-Mobile network as reasons for delaying its 5G work. Accordingly, it asked that the FCC extend 2025 milestone deadlines into late 2026.

Citing "unanticipated intervening global events beyond [its] control," EchoStar is seeking additional time to meet construction milestones attached to some of its wireless licenses. An advantage EchoStar has is that the FCC wants to see increased national wireless network competition, analysts told us.

Telecom network operations worldwide are moving to the cloud, though not without challenges, experts said Wednesday during a TelecomTV webinar. “We’re seeing ... momentum,” said Mark Longwell, Redhat director-telco and edge alliances: “It’s real. It’s happening. Is it moving as fast as everyone wanted? Probably not.”

T-Mobile anticipates having 12 million home internet customers by 2028, CEO Mike Sievert said Wednesday during the company’s Capital Markets Day. The company added 406,000 fixed wireless subscribers in Q2 (see 2407310040) and plans to cover as many as 15 million homes with fiber, based on its current agreements with other companies. It will cover more homes if it makes additional investments, he said. Sievert noted this was the company’s first such event since March 2021, when it was virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, when T-Mobile announced its buy of Sprint, it was “dead last in the 4G LTE era without a lot of runway for growth,” he said. But T-Mobile was the first of the major carriers to recognize the importance of mid-band spectrum for 5G. T-Mobile has the most and highest-quality spectrum of any U.S. carrier “and will have for years to come,” he said. Sievert noted that T-Mobile also has the densest network as a benefit of the Sprint buy and an after-effect of the days when the carrier didn’t have low-band spectrum and needed more towers. “The next three or four years will not only continue but actually extend and accelerate our success,” Sievert said: “This is an entrepreneurial team that acts very quickly.” T-Mobile expects it will generate $80 billion in cash between now and 2027. The first $10 billion will pay for already announced transactions and $50 billion will be returned to shareholders. That leaves $20 billion, some of which could go to further investments. “That’s incredible flexibility.” Among the announcements T-Mobile made Wednesday (see 2409180018), the carrier said it's using its 5G stand-alone network to offer first responders priority access through network slicing under a new T-Priority offering. “The network slice ensures first responders get lower latency and faster 5G speeds more consistently, and it also gives them the highest priority across every single 5G band, even in times of extreme congestion,” said a news release. T-Mobile said its first major customer is New York City.

CTIA asked the FCC to act on its 2019 petition seeking clarity of pole attachment rules under Section 224 of the Communications Act. Representatives of the group met with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioner Brendan Carr, according to filings posted Wednesday in docket 17-84. “As wireless providers continue to build out and enhance 5G networks nationwide, access to existing poles -- including light poles -- is critical,” CTIA said: “However, uncertainty exists today as to the application of Section 224 to light poles, which continues to impede their use and hamper wireless providers’ ability to increase capacity in their networks to meet ever-growing data demands and expand competitive home broadband offerings.”

The successful deployment of open radio access networks will require international cooperation, speakers said Wednesday during NTIA’s first International ORAN Symposium in Golden, Colorado. On day one, conference attendees heard U.S. officials highlight the Biden administration’s commitment to open networks (see 2409170061).