The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction ended a year ago, but the agency has yet to award T-Mobile any of the more than 7,000 licenses it won, or allow access to the spectrum through a grant of special temporary authority, the company said. The FCC declined to issue the licenses because of the March decision expiration of its auction authority (see 2307070042). “While we wait for Congress to act, Americans are losing out on enhanced 5G broadband and economic development opportunities,” Ulf Ewaldsson, T-Mobile president-technology, blogged Tuesday. “Our outstanding 2.5 GHz licenses would improve high speed internet service for millions of American households, in all 50 states and Puerto Rico,” he said: “In fact, 61 of the nation’s 109 operational Historically Black Colleges and Universities are in locations that would be immediately enhanced with improved 5G data speeds, mobile and home internet services were the FCC to issue T-Mobile’s licenses or grant access to the spectrum via STA.” Ewaldsson expressed hope Congress will act when it returns to Washington next week. “Restoring this authority not only provides a path forward for a future spectrum pipeline, but also ensures the Auction 108 licenses we purchased can be deployed for the benefit of consumers,” he said.

Qualcomm and Broadcom notified the FCC they're opening portals for public tests of their 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) systems. The letters, posted Wednesday in docket 21-352, come less than a week after the Office of Engineering and Technology authorized a process for testing the systems (see 2308250061). Qualcomm, already approved as an AFC operator in Canada (see 2308230060), said its portal is already open. “The public can test Qualcomm’s AFC system by registering for a free account at the Public Trial Portal by clicking on the ‘REGISTER’ link,” Qualcomm said. Broadcom said its AFC portal will open Tuesday. The Wi-Fi Alliance told the FCC Wednesday its AFC system will be available for public trial via an internet-based test portal starting Sept. 6. The FCC had not yet posted the alliance's filing.

Groups representing incumbent licensees in the 6 GHz band, led by electric utilities, asked the FCC to seek comment on any revised rules for the band, “consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act,” before issuing an order as expected later this year (see 2308070060). “The Commission may not adopt rules which were not proposed” in the 2020 Further NPRM “or otherwise considered in this proceeding,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295: “Actual notice of any new rules must come from the Commission and not from monitoring comments in the record. Although the Commission may adopt rules that are the logical outgrowth of those that were proposed, it must provide fair and sufficient notice, including about the material components of such a rule.” The opportunity for comment is “particularly vital where, as here, the matter involves complex technical issues and a modification of the proposed rule results in a substantial change affecting the technical issues under consideration,” the groups said. The filing was signed by the Utilities Technology Council, the Edison Electric Institute, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, APCO and the Enterprise Wireless Alliance. AT&T also weighed in, raising concerns about very-low-power operations in the band, a focus of the FNPRM. Advocates “continue to assert as gospel various technical theories that are subject to considerable debate on the record, to urge the Commission to rely on their self-interested, curated summaries of simulations that remain unfiled and undocumented, and to extrapolate insignificant results to broad assertions of interference protection,” AT&T said: “In the face of substantial real-world testing demonstrating the potential for interference, the Commission should not rely on unfiled, untested, and undocumented assertions for decisions that could impact critical radio communications infrastructure.”

Correction: SiriusXM first identified interference and brought to the FCC’s attention the device that was the subject of an AT&T complaint at the FCC (see 2308280048). SiriusXM doesn't operate wireless signal boosters.

Open radio access network and virtualized RAN revenue declined in Q2, year over year, the first such contraction the Dell’Oro Group has seen since it started tracking these next-generation architectures in 2019, said a Tuesday report. Revenue increased in Europe but not quickly enough to offset declines in Asia Pacific and North America, Dell’Oro said. “The vendor landscape remains mixed, as many Open RAN-focused suppliers are not thriving as they had hoped,” it said: “NEC experienced a material improvement in its Open RAN market share between 2022 and 1H23, whereas Mavenir’s Open RAN revenue share declined over the same period.” The slow-down isn’t a surprise, said Vice President Stefan Pongratz. “Projections for 2023 were more tempered, considering that it would take time for the early majority operators to balance out the more challenging comparisons with the early adopters who fueled the initial Open RAN wave,” he said. “This is the trend we are witnessing now -- growth decelerated in the first quarter and declined in the second quarter,” he said.

NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee will meet Sept. 21, starting at 1 p.m. EDT, said a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. The meeting will be at the Verizon Technology and Policy Center, 1300 I St NW, Suite 500 East, Washington, D.C. CSMAC last met in July (see 2307180076).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology asked for letters of interest “describing technical expertise and products” that support and demonstrate International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 18013-5 and ISO/IEC 18013-7 standards capabilities for the Accelerate Adoption of Digital Identities on Mobile Devices project. “This notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in collaborating with technology companies to address cybersecurity challenges identified under the … project,” said a Tuesday Federal Register notice. The center plans to start “collaborative activities” tied to the project no earlier than Sept. 28.

Stage three testing is nearly complete and stage four testing is underway in NTIA’s $7 million 2023 5G Challenge, the agency said Tuesday. The third round of testing separated the contestant radio unit (RU) subsystems from the central unit and distributed unit pair (CU+DU) subsystems. “Six pairs of contestants were accepted for Stage Three,” NTIA said (see 2306050058): “Three pairings successfully interoperated, meaning their components all worked together to successfully make a 5G phone call. Two contestants’ network components did not pass while one pair is still within their testing window.” The three pairings that passed are Capgemini CU+DU and QCT/Benetel RU, Mavenir CU+DU and NewEdge RU and Radisys CU+DU and Lions RU, NTIA said.

Representatives of the Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge spoke with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, urging the agency to complete work on issues raised in a 2020 Further NPRM on the 6 GHz band (see 2004230059). “We urged the Commission to finalize the two key issues that remain pending in the 6 GHz FNPRM in a robust way that avoids the risk of creating a new ‘Wi-Fi digital divide,’” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-295: “Both the authorization of Very Low Power (VLP) devices and higher power for indoor-only use (LPI) are particularly crucial for digital equity and inclusion, for continued U.S. leadership in next generation Wi-Fi, and for virtually all consumers, businesses and community anchor institutions.” The groups led a recent letter to Rosenworcel raising those concerns (see 2308030061). Southern Co. representatives, meanwhile, raised concerns in a call with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington. “To the extent the Commission may be moving forward to expand unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band to include VLP operations, it must first put the details of its proposals out for public comment to receive necessary input and information from stakeholders and to comport with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act,” they said.

Public Knowledge supports FCC moves last week launching a process for testing the automated frequency coordination systems that will manage access to 6 GHz band spectrum by standard-power unlicensed devices (see 2308250061) and hopes for continuing progress, emailed Kathleen Burke, PK policy counsel. “The pending [6 GHz] order before the FCC has taken longer than expected,” she said: “We would rather the Commission take its time and get things right than rush ahead with compromises that would limit the opportunities this band has to offer.” PK hopes the commission will move forward on its proposed rules on low-power indoor and very-low-power operations “without adding cumbersome mitigation measures that would unnecessarily increase the cost of next-generation WiFi and VLP devices, potentially creating a WiFi digital divide,” Burke said.