The FCC’s “top-to-bottom” review of communications companies’ ties to Russia, announced by Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday (see 2203160031), likely has a broad focus, covering media companies, telecom and infrastructure providers, submarine cable operators and any Russian companies carrying U.S.-international phone traffic, industry experts told us. But compared with China, a recurring focus of the FCC, ties to Russia appear to be minimal.
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
T-Mobile is “absolutely on track” to shutter its 3G network starting March 31, Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik said at a Deutsche Bank investment conference Tuesday. Osvaldik said AT&T and Verizon won’t be able to catch up soon with T-Mobile’s 5G deployment. “We're the only ones with a 5G stand-alone core, and you really need a 5G stand-alone core to enable a lot of these use cases that you're hearing about -- network slicing, creating private networks, things like that,” he said: That's why business customers “are tremendously excited to work with us because they know we have the network capabilities before you even talk about the actual coverage differentiation that we have on the mid-band layer and the low-band layer of the network,” he said. 5G won’t be built based on millimeter wave spectrum or small cells, he said: “That's not a way you can generate ubiquitous coverage. The way we approached it is a macro-tower-focused network.” T-Mobile had to deploy 5G on three times as many towers to get from 100 million covered POPs to 200 million, he said. That's what other carriers “have ahead of them to get from 100 million to 200 million, and it's going to take them a while to get to 200 million,” he said.
After years of preparation, 5G is about to become real for many consumers, speakers said during a virtual AT&T Policy Forum Tuesday. It's at “the jump off point,” said David Christopher, AT&T executive vice president-partnerships and 5G ecosystem development. “The reality is, it’s early days,” he said.
AT&T is in the market for more spectrum, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches told a Deutsche Bank conference Monday, not elaborating on what bands the company may pursue. “Whenever something comes to the market, we’re going to evaluate it because we think this is a core asset that we will need in order to deliver the quality of services that we aspire to deliver,” he said. AT&T led bidding in the 3.45 GHz auction and was second after Verizon in the C-band auction (see 2201260055). Desroches noted AT&T’s recent uptick in post-paid phone adds, outpacing T-Mobile and Verizon. “For several years, we had been under-investing” in wireless and “hadn’t been investing in keeping our customers,” he said: “That changed in 2020, and we really stepped up our investment to a point where we are matching our competitors and the results have been very clear. We have, during that time, led the industry in share. We are growing both top line and bottom line for our largest business, and we expect that to continue.” Desroches said AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile each has “a really good 5G network and they’re going to continue to get better” as more spectrum comes online. AT&T expects to lose some customers following its ongoing 3G sunset (see 2202240002) but not to take a major hit. “We expect to see some 3G subscribers churning off, and so that’s going to impact us some,” he said. On its fiber build, AT&T isn’t “immune” to supply-chain problems, Desroches said. “We have first priority on supplies,” he said: “We are in great position on access to labor relative to others, and what we’re seeing is while there were issues in the summer of last year, those issues have been largely resolved and we exited 2021 with good momentum, and that continues in 2022.” Desroches also said its fixed-wireless offering is well suited to less-densely populated areas, but in other markets it doesn’t make sense because the operating costs are higher. “Why not just simply go and do it right the first time … build fiber and bet on the long term that the trends are in your favor,” he said.
Nearly 50% of T-Mobile’s network traffic is now 5G, compared with 10% a year ago, President-Technology Neville Ray, told a Morgan Stanley conference Wednesday. The company’s 5G offering uses its 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz holdings. “As we go through the balance of this year, the intent is to have pretty much all of that [2.5 GHz] spectrum dedicated to the 5G game,” he said: “We've made great progress on that as we move through '20 and '21.” Ray said more than 40% of postpaid smartphones are 5G capable. About 80% of Sprint cellsites will be decommissioned by the middle of 2022, he said. “There are tens of thousands of sites that we're in a position” to take offline, he said. “We have to upgrade the sites that we’re keeping,” Ray said: “That work is already progressing well. Over the two years, we’ve spent a lot of time really understanding information and data about Sprint customer usage on the network we didn’t have access to previously. Now we’re able to, on a site-by-site basis, measure and quantify customer impact.” T-Mobile said Thursday it’s making its 5G Home Internet service available through 7,000 Metro by T-Mobile stores across the U.S. “This move makes the Un-carrier first to launch a fixed wireless home broadband service for prepaid customers, with no credit check and no annual contracts,” the carrier said. The service costs $50 monthly with "a one-time gateway purchase."
The FCC appears likely to adopt an ascending-clock auction in the 2.5 GHz band, or some version of a multi-round auction, rather than the sealed-bid approach favored by wireless ISPs, AT&T, Dish Network and others concerned about T-Mobile’s potential to dominate a more traditional auction, industry experts said. The auction is expected to start in July.
The FCC adopted the technical requirements for the mobile challenge, verification and crowdsourcing processes for collecting broadband data, as required by the Broadband Data Act. The order was handed down Wednesday by the chiefs of the Wireless Bureau, Office of Economics and Analytics and Office of Engineering and Technology. Small carriers and others sought changes to proposed rules in comments last fall (see 2109290045). The order adopts the “parameters and metrics … that must be collected both for on-the-ground test data to support challenge submissions, rebuttals to cognizable challenges, and responses to verification requests, and for infrastructure information to support challenge rebuttals and responses to verification requests.” Among the policy cuts, the FCC clarifies that “minimum and maximum test length parameters will apply individually to download speed, upload speed, and round-trip latency measurements, and will not include ramp up time.” The agency said it disagreed with arguments by Competitive Carriers Association, Public Knowledge/New America and others that “imposing a maximum test limit places an arbitrary or inferior limitation on testing.” The requirements “balance representative measurement over a stable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection, on the one hand, versus data usage considerations, on the other hand -- especially for consumers who may have limited data plans,” the agency said. The FCC said it understands “concerns about excessive data and burdens on consumers and governments and other third-party challengers to assure that their data aligns to these standards.” But the agency said “such parameters and metrics are necessary to provide the Commission with complete and reliable challenge data that accurately reflect on-the-ground conditions in the challenged area and provide the additional context necessary to efficiently and fully adjudicate challenges and thereby assure that more accurate and reliable coverage maps are made available.” The order said the FCC’s speed test app is “a reliable and efficient method for entities to use in submitting crowdsourced mobile coverage data to the Commission.” On the issue of hexagonal cell sizes for testing, “CTIA, T-Mobile, and AT&T urged the use of smaller resolution 10 hexagons instead of resolution 8, contending that hexagons at resolution 10 better match the 100-meter resolution providers must use when submitting their coverage map,” the order says: The Rural Wireless Association and Vermont regulators “recommend allowing challenges to resolution 6 and 7 hexagons in rural areas, which RWA notes are often difficult to test because of a lack of accessible roads.” The FCC found middle ground, saying resolution 8 “strikes an appropriate balance as the smallest resolution for a cognizable challenge.” The order notes some wanted more clarity on how the FCC will use crowdsourced data. The commission will evaluate data first through an automated process “to identify potential areas that warrant further review and evaluation by Commission staff,” the order said: Problems areas “would be subject to further review and evaluation by Commission staff of available evidence, such as speed test data, infrastructure data, crowdsourced and other third-party data.”
Japan and the U.S. are working together on open radio access networks as an alternative to the limited choice of network gear from non-Chinese providers, especially Huawei, speakers said during a Hudson Institute webinar Wednesday. Experts said many challenges remain to scaling up ORAN to make it more attractive to carriers.
The U.S. isn't putting attention on the telecom workforce that will be needed as federal funds are spent to close the digital divide, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday, at the kickoff meeting of the Telecommunications Workforce Interagency Group (TWIG). The webcast included remarks from Biden administration officials but no discussion.
The FCC is working through comments on the future of the 4.9 GHz band and likely has reached no conclusions, industry and FCC officials told us. The Phoenix Center argued Monday 4.9 GHz should be allocated to FirstNet, saying that would be good for the economy and promote jobs.