PCTEL Wednesday unveiled a new embedded antenna platform for integrated radio deployments. “PCTEL’s embedded antennas help device manufacturers to overcome space limitations and meet aesthetic requirements without sacrificing performance,” the company said: The platform “consists of compact low-profile design solutions that provide wide coverage patterns in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz frequency bands. They are easy to install and integrate into tight spaces.”

Las Vegas chose Juniper Networks' Cloud Metro to build the city's private 5G network, the company said Wednesday. “This ambitious endeavor hinges on the city building and operating the largest private 5G network in the United States, complemented by a portfolio of smart city capabilities,” Juniper said. Las Vegas has a goal of becoming “a model smart city by 2025,” the company added.

The Cloud Security Alliance announced Wednesday the launch of what it said is the industry’s first “authoritative” zero-trust training and credentialing program. “From industrial control systems to cloud computing to generative AI, the world of pervasive technology has outraced legacy security models,” alliance CEO Jim Reavis said. “Zero Trust ‘never trust, always verify’ principles are clearly the path forward, and we anticipate virtually all organizations to apply this strategy to diverse technological environments in order to protect strategic assets and prevent breaches,” he said.

Verizon is satisfied with its progress on fixed wireless access after adding 384,000 FWA customers in Q3, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said at a Morgan Stanley financial conference Wednesday. “It's very simple -- you plug it in and go,” he said: “There's no install. … It resonates with customers and it's very simple to use, and that's been the goal with this.” Skiadas said Verizon is now able to deploy all the licenses it purchased in the C-band auction, providing some 160 MHz of spectrum across the U.S. “Our C-band is rolled out to ... a little more than half of our cellsites,” he said. “We're very pleased with the progress thus far of the build, but we still have more to do.”

To facilitate wider adoption of school bus Wi-Fi in 2024, the FCC needs to clarify E-rate eligibility issues before year's end, Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition Executive Director John Windhausen said Wednesday during an SHLB webinar. A divided FCC last month approved a declaratory ruling 3-2 clarifying that the use of Wi-Fi on school buses is eligible for E-rate funding (see 2310190056). Comments are due Nov. 30 about the addition of services and equipment needed to use Wi-Fi service on school buses, the Wireline Bureau ordered. With the agency's declaratory ruling, legislation from Congress about bus eligibility issues is unlikely to be forthcoming, said Jeff Lopez, senior policy adviser for Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. Lopez said past bus eligibility bills faced pushback from questions about USF's limited resources. He said the USF working group started by Lujan and others (see 2305110066) is focused on broader revisions to the program. Farmington (New Mexico) Municipal Schools Supervisor Billy Huish said its adoption of bus Wi-Fi "was kind of a no-brainer" because all students have a take-home electronic device and often face rides of 90 minutes to two hours each way. He said there aren’t gaps in connectivity coverage, though buses going to tribal lands require installation of dual wireless carriers, with coverage toggling depending on which has a stronger signal. The costs the FCC cited in the declaratory ruling -- $1,840 per bus per year -- are "pretty close to what we're paying," Huish said. The typical bus setup involves a cellular modem, which converts LTE or 5G signals into Wi-Fi, and an antenna, with the system wired into the vehicle's power supply, said Ben Weintraub, CEO of Kajeet, a school bus Wi-Fi provider.

GPR sought a tweak of a waiver the company received earlier this month from the Office of Engineering and Technology for its driver-assistance safety technology, which uses ultra-wideband (UWB) ground penetrating radar. The waiver grant is conditioned, in part, on the GPR device halting operations when a vehicle comes to a stop, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-241. “The GPR system’s design, however, has been updated to improve the system’s functionality and safety,” GPR said. The system “is designed to begin transmitting continuously when the vehicle’s electrical power system begins operating, including when the vehicle is stopped,” the company said: “Continuously providing UWB outputs while stopped allows for the system to make constant vehicle position corrections, thus avoiding problems induced by motion model or dead reckoning drift. This substantially increases the positioning accuracy and timeliness of vehicle position data when moving from a situation when the vehicle has come to a complete stop.” GPR representatives met with OET staff to explain the need for changes.

CTA offered its updated take on the FCC’s proposed cybersecurity labeling program for smart devices, in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 23-239. Most replies were posted Monday (see 2311130034). CTA and other groups said last week the program should be voluntary and based on existing National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance (see 2311090033). “The task now falls to the Commission to establish this Program to support efficient procedures for use of the Mark, apply rules consistently and equitably across program participants, and enable the Program to evolve over time,” CTA said. The group called on the FCC to “embrace opportunities to minimize administrative burdens and other participation costs while promoting public trust in the Mark.” The commission “must establish a process for self-attestation, streamline the review and renewal process for devices bearing the Mark, and leverage modern industry practices like e-labeling and other technology solutions,” CTA said. NCTA said most comments agree with its arguments that “the Program’s benefits and ultimate success are more likely to be realized if the technical security criteria for the Cyber Trust Mark are based on existing guidance that NIST has developed through robust engagement with diverse technology and security experts.” Building the program on “NIST’s already-established definition of ‘IoT device’ would maintain a consistent federal approach to IoT security baseline requirements, while also providing a clear vehicle for the Commission to identify and address updates over time,” NCTA said. The Connectivity Standards Alliance noted commenters disagreed on definitions and whether the FCC should certify IoT products or devices. The comments supporting certification of products “for the most part fail to squarely address or recommend a currently available framework for meeting the challenges associated with that approach,” the Alliance said: “The Alliance reiterates its recommendation to launch the Program with an immediately implementable focus on consumer IoT devices, and build from there.”

Open radio access networks are gaining steam, as evidenced by a recent meeting of representatives from the U.S., Australia, India and Japan at the Quad Open RAN Forum, the Open RAN Policy Coalition said in a Tuesday newsletter to members. “Recent trends in the global adoption of Open RAN have been very encouraging,” said Diane Rinaldo, coalition executive director. “As the Open RAN revolution gains momentum, governments worldwide are recognizing the immense potential of Open RAN and are taking proactive steps to support its development and adoption,” she said. The coalition anticipates additional funding released soon in the U.S. by the NTIA under the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (see 2308080047), she said: “These funds will undoubtedly continue to accelerate the development of open and interoperable networks, setting the stage for a brighter, more connected future.”

Despite a slow start, open radio access networks are starting to build momentum, including in the U.S., speakers said Tuesday during an Informa Tech webinar. Getting the timing right will be difficult but “the commitment is there from large operators” to move to open networks, said Gabriel Brown, senior principal analyst-mobile networks & 5G at Heavy Reading. Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and other big European operators are committed to ORAN, he said. In the U.S., ORAN has gone “a little slower than some anticipated” but U.S. carriers are “pioneering” virtual RAN and cloud RAN, he said. Brown also noted Dish Network’s deployment of ORAN technology in its network build. “We’re starting to see it pick up in other regions,” he said. Japan’s Docomo is probably the biggest incumbent so far, he said. Vodafone had its first ORAN deployment in 2019 in the U.K., said Lucia De Miguel Albertos, senior ORAN manager. ORAN requires “continuous work,” she said. “It takes months of efforts, even years … to have a good performance,” she said. Vodafone decided as part of its ORAN program that it had to serve as its own system integrator, Albertos said. In the U.K., Vodafone started its deployment using Samsung as system integrator but plans to take on those responsibilities if all goes as planned, she said. ORAN “is no longer a concept. We have seen it being deployed commercially by many” major carriers “across the globe,” said Prakash Desai, senior director-product management at ORAN company Wind River. The network performance metrics operators are seeing are “at par or better, in some cases, than traditional networks,” he said. Work remains on ORAN standardization, including on the RAN intelligent controller, data operation, automation and accelerating apps, he said. “Interoperability is always complex,” he said. “What is needed now is scale -- more and more tier-one [operators] to jump on the bandwagon and say, ‘Yes, we can do it,’” Desai said. Wind River has worked with Verizon to deploy more than 30,000 virtual nodes carrying network traffic, he said. Verizon’s 5G network covers the New York metro area “and there cannot be a more dense urban network than New York City,” he said: Virtualized nodes have been deployed there and working for more than two years.

The Rural Wireless Association (RWA) members face long delays in receiving reimbursement through the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 18-89. RWA asked the FCC to look for ways to expedite the program. “When a modification request is submitted the entire application is locked, which halts the processing of other submitted invoices that may be unrelated to the modification request,” RWA said. Some members have been forced to take out loans and interest payments are “presumed to not be eligible for reimbursement,” the group said: “Requests for Information have been issued when there are discrepancies of less than $1.00. Some participants have expressed that rounding errors should simply be adjusted in favor of the FCC/Fund Administrator, so that they are not required to spend time and resources fixing an insignificant rounding error on invoices totaling millions of dollars.”