Safe Connections Act

The FCC will take up an NPRM on high-frequency spectrum at its Oct. 22 meeting, Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday. The FCC approved a notice of inquiry on the topic at its October meeting (see 1410170048). The NPRM is expected to ask a series of questions that emerged as industry responded to the NOI, industry and agency officials said.

Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt plans to speak to the Senate Commerce Committee on 5G Friday, said an ex parte document filed with the FCC Wednesday in docket 14-177. “We thought that you would find it of interest as the Commission explores new technologies that could unlock mid-band and higher band frequency spectrum for 5G and the next generation of mobile wireless services that it offers,” said Covington & Burling attorney Gerry Waldron, directing the filing to Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. Hundt's presentation runs 53 slides, all included in the filing. One slide says 5G will come to reach everyone, everywhere, and another is titled, “5G: 40 Times More Spectrum.” Another slide said the IoT requires 5G and 5G requires a new radio access network on greenfield spectrum. “5G green field build needs to be anchored in mid band,” the presentation said. The Senate Commerce Committee has outlined a series of spectrum hearings this year, with an eye toward legislation.

The FCC should modify rules under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act to ease the collocation of distributed antenna system (DAS) networks and other small cell systems, said CTIA, major wireless carriers and other industry commenters. The Wireless Bureau sought comment on revised rules for small cells in a July public notice (see 1507280037). Initial comments were due Monday and many of the comments were posted Tuesday in docket 15-180.

The U.S.-based Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Germany-based Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance said they agreed to work together on the deployment of 5G. The groups hope to "enable and support the timely delivery of 5G to the market,” a Monday news release said. “In the coming years, both parties intend to achieve this by working together in projects on 5G related issues and by carrying out joint 5G public relation measures.” ATIS President Susan Miller said the agreement underscores the importance of cooperation. "ATIS sees its agreement with NGMN as important to its leadership role in delivering 5G requirements focused on the North American market and contributing them to global efforts,” she said. “The goal is to deliver the long-promised convergence of all services onto a common framework, with corresponding enhancements to efficiency, security and service velocity."

Intel joined Verizon's 5G Technology Forum, in which several companies are collaborating to develop and field test 5G services (see 1509080062), the companies said in a joint news release Wednesday. Intel will aid in the development of 5G standards and conduct testing to optimize end-to-end mobile broadband and IoT devices and network infrastructures, the companies said. Intel will begin working in Verizon's 5G sandbox environments in both San Francisco and Massachusetts, and is developing its own test beds in Oregon, California and other locations, the release said.

If the FCC undertakes rulemaking regarding use of frequencies above 24 GHz for mobile services, including the 42-43.5 GHz band, it should look to answer a slew of policy and technical questions, such as what the 5G system characteristics are that can be used to look at the sharing environment, said the Satellite Industry Association in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-177. It lists more than two pages of suggested 5G, propagation, satellite, inter-service sharing, cumulative interference and licensing questions. They range from whether in certain bands 5G networks could be limited to indoor-only use to minimize interference to what are the prospects of developing user devices that can operate across the bands spanning 24-95 GHz and even above that might be used for 5G services. When looking at propagation models, SIA asked, should the FCC use the free space loss model to calculate interference, or are there other models that should be tested? It also said the FCC might want to inquire about technical parameters of the earth station types deployed or in the works in the frequency bands under consideration, and how sharing between satellite earth stations and 5G systems might work. And as it looks at cumulative interference, the FCC might need to ask about compatibility models or studies that look at cumulative 5G interference, SIA said.

Ericsson and LG Uplus signed an agreement to collaborate on the development of IoT and 5G technologies, Ericsson said in a news release Monday. The agreement will run until 2020, Ericsson said, and covers the areas of IoT infrastructure and narrow-band LTE, software-defined networking and network functions virtualization, readying the core 5G network, global content delivery networks and advanced IoT technologies. The companies will share research and testing results and "work together to prepare a roadmap for long-term network development," Ericsson said.

Verizon is “likely” to participate in next year’s TV incentive auction, CEO Lowell McAdam said Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York. That message was marginally more positive than comments Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo made in July during an earnings call, in which he said only that Verizon had yet to make any decisions (see 1507210042). But McAdam also warned Thursday that the 600 MHz spectrum is less valuable to Verizon than the mid-band spectrum it bought in the recently concluded AWS-3 auction. He also downplayed any likelihood Verizon will make a play for Dish Network.

Wait until after November's World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 before taking action such as an NPRM on high-frequency spectrum, EchoStar said in a filing posted Tuesday in FCC docket 14-177. Some topics may be recommended for more study and there may be spectrum allocation decisions at WRC-15, so waiting until afterward to tackle high-frequency spectrum issues would let everyone, including the FCC, "take into consideration those WRC-15 determinations," the company said, citing a litany of unanswered questions about high-frequency spectrum issues it said need to be hashed out before an NPRM, including whether frequencies higher than 95 GHz should be included because antenna arrays in higher frequencies, such as 120-240 GHz, are more cost-effective than those at the 30-60 GHz range. EchoStar said other questions need answers, such as what kind of interoperability potential exists across different 5G bands as 5G could end up including bands above 95 GHz, and what kind of frequency ranges are best suited for end-to-end latency of less than a millisecond in 5G. Lacking technical data on incumbent operations, technical sharing rules such as what Intel has proposed "would essentially be meaningless," EchoStar said. Intel has pushed for the FCC to move quickly on a high-frequency spectrum NPRM, arguing it would encourage ITU discussions on the topic at WRC 2019 (see 1508110053). Even sharing criteria would first need numerous questions answered, such as the typical transmit power levels and antenna patterns for Ka-band earth stations, and how would 5G affect satellite earth stations, EchoStar said. There's also a dearth of data on potential cumulative 5G interference due to incumbent systems, and a lack of propagation models for 5G systems above 24 GHz, it said, leaving questions about what models the FCC would use, as well as how the agency would even propose technical and deployment parameters for 5G given that 3GPP and other standards groups are developing the technical transmit and receive parameters and will not be done until perhaps by 2020, the company said.

4G Americas released an executive summary on 3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 13, describing the key technical features designed to further move the industry toward 5G. Monday's release comes “just as the mobile industry begins discussion and development of another generation … of mobile technology to face unprecedented challenges: accommodating skyrocketing traffic growth amid a spectrum shortage, escalation of the Internet of Things and a vision for network transformation that will create an all-IP environment,” 4G Americas said. The summary provides a broad overview the various features under development for HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced, the group said.