US Cellular Urges 100 MHz Blocks in 24 GHz Auction, Meeting With Pai on 5G
U.S. Cellular Chairman LeRoy Carlson met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on the national carrier’s need for high-frequency spectrum for 5G. U.S. Cellular “discussed how its experiments with fixed 4G wireless service have produced strong results,” said a filing posted…
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Tuesday in docket 14-177. “Its future ability to continue to compete with the dominant nationwide carriers will depend in large part on its deployment of 5G networks, which will require access to millimeter wave band spectrum.” Competitive carriers need access to high-band spectrum below 30 GHz, because of the propagation characteristics, the filing said. Its target band is 24 GHz, cleared by the FCC for 5G. The company urged the FCC “to ensure that smaller bidders have a reasonable opportunity to acquire licenses for the 24 GHz band.” The agency should license the band using seven 100-MHz blocks, it said. “Because licenses for 200 megahertz blocks could be prohibitively expensive for many smaller bidders, all such bidders could be forced to compete for a single 24 GHz band license in each market, which undoubtedly would cause this license to sell at a premium," the carrier said. "Licensing the 24 GHz band primarily on the basis of 200 megahertz blocks also would mean artificially restricting this band to, at most, four licensees, likely to the exclusion of smaller bidders.” The carrier had meetings with the other commissioners as well.