Last week’s MLB All-Star game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle shows the benefits of 5G, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert blogged Monday. “We have a superfast, award-winning 5G network that continues to come to life in new ways,” he said: “Take the MLB Next app with augmented reality: Fans at T-Mobile Park … could take a 3D look at the ball and the launch angle, watch pitch replays, and see a bird’s-eye view of ALL the live action.” The game also featured MLB’s automated ball-strike system, he said. The system uses cameras to track pitches as they pass through a 3D strike zone for each batter, Sievert said. “The calls are instantaneously available, providing the first step toward revolutionizing how they’re made in real time,” he said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau granted five additional licenses Monday, in the 900 MHz broadband segment, to PDV Spectrum. The licenses are in Colorado. The FCC approved an order in 2020 reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband, while maintaining 4 MHz for narrowband operations (see 2005130057).

Dish Network certified at the FCC that as of June 14 it offered 5G broadband service to nearly 246.5 million people in the U.S., equal to 73.56% total U.S. population based on 2020 U.S. census data. Dish said download speeds are equal to or greater than 35 Mbps, and it has deployed 16,399 5G sites. “DISH’s user equipment offering includes the Motorola Edge Plus 2023, an advanced 5G smartphone,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 22-212: “It operates on, among other spectrum frequencies, DISH’s AWS-4, AWS H Block, 600 MHz, and Lower 700 MHz E Block spectrum licenses. The coverage calculations and link budgets in this 5G Buildout Status Report are based upon the technical specifications and performance of this device.” Dish previously announced it had met the June 14 coverage milestone (see 2306150010). “Project Genesis is available to anyone in a qualifying location, and offers unlimited 5G data and voice services for $25/month,” Dish said. The carrier asked that technical data it submitted be given confidential treatment by the FCC and not publicly disclosed. "Disclosure of the Confidential 5G Materials would be particularly harmful to DISH because of our status as a nascent competitor to the largest incumbent wireless carriers," Dish said. "DISH zealously guards information about its ongoing 5G deployment from incumbent competitors because its disclosure would give them an undue commercial advantage competing with DISH, which is a competitor in the consumer mobile wireless market."

The Wireless ISP Association met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in its push for a technology-neutral approach to rules for the FCC’s Alternative Connect America Cost Model program (see 2306260044). “Unlicensed spectrum can be provided, and is being provided, reliably and without causing or suffering harmful interference through high-quality engineering and network architecture,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 10-90. “Operators of unlicensed broadband networks have a mutual desire to avoid interfering with each other, and instances of harmful interference are negligible and frequently the result of off-network problems such as fiber cuts on upstream backhaul connections,” WISPA said.

Martin Cooper, known as the inventor of the cellphone as a Motorola technologist, is a skeptic of wireless industry arguments about a pending spectrum crisis. The world “is just at the beginning of the cellular revolution,” he said on a Cooley webinar Thursday, interviewed by former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. The standard story is that spectrum “is like beachfront property -- when you use it all up, there isn’t anymore,” Cooper said. “How can that be true?” When Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated the first radio, he used all the available spectrum for most of the world, Cooper said. Fifty years later “we had a million times more capacity, and believe it or not, another 50 years” later “and we did another million times,” he said: “Somehow or other, technology has stayed ahead of the game forever, and we have never had a scarcity of spectrum.” The technology already exists to make much more efficient use of spectrum, he said. The challenge “is to change our perception of spectrum, to get people to understand that we’ve got to … share the spectrum,” he said. McDowell noted Cooper developed what some call “Cooper’s Law,” that spectral efficiency doubles every 30 months and becomes exponential over time. Cooper’s wife, Arlene Harris, who co-founded wireless technology company Dyna with him in 1986, said on the webinar the expiration of the FCC’s auction authority in March could be a good thing for the wireless industry. “Good for Congress -- let’s starve the carriers,” Harris said. The carriers will then have to put pressure on their suppliers to develop technological solutions to capacity issues, she said. The technology Cooper developed in the 1990s “would have improved [network] capacity a ton, and yet the commission goes off and sells more spectrum -- the carriers had no reason to implement that technology,” Harris said: “They were buying spectrum and parking it.” Cooper envisions a world without exclusive licenses for spectrum. Allocations would be done “on the fly,” he said. Someone who wants to make a call would ask for a channel “and that channel is created instantaneously over the optimum frequency, the optimum amount of power,” he said: “We reconfigure as things change. That is the way systems should work. We are a long way away from that today, but that is how we’re going to get another million times capacity in spectrum capacity, and it’s all doable” with the right processing, smart antennas and other technology. The government is going to have to convince carriers to share spectrum, which won’t be easy, he said. “Carriers today think they own the spectrum -- they don’t own the spectrum, they have a license to use it,” Cooper said.

Competitive Carriers Association and industry representatives met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff on the group’s petition with CTIA (see 2211010056) for partial reconsideration of the FCC’s new mandatory disaster response initiative. Industry comments support the petition (see 2301110036). “CCA emphasized that providing uninterrupted service and maintaining resilient networks is a top priority for its members,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 15-80: “Many CCA carrier members operate in regions most vulnerable to hurricanes and other natural disasters and work diligently to harden their networks to ensure the availability of communications service when needed most and to facilitate emergency aid as quickly as possible.” While carriers are working to meet their obligations, “CCA members are concerned that all required agreements will not be finalized in time to satisfy existing FCC requirements,” the group said. Also at the meeting were representatives of Appalachian Wireless, Southern Linc, Dish Wireless and NextGen.

Groups representing 6 GHz incumbents spoke with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about cost recovery mechanisms for licensees having to mitigate against interference in the band, which was opened for unlicensed use three years ago (see 2004230059). “Costs that have been or will be incurred by incumbents due to new unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band include: baselining the RF environment, procurement of equipment and software that would enable licensees to identify interference and, if necessary, relocation of microwave facilities to other spectrum bands or alternative communications facilities,” said a filing Friday in docket 18-295. They cited as precedent a 1996 order by the FCC providing a plan for sharing the costs of relocating microwave facilities from the 2 GHz band. Among those at the meeting were the Utilities Technology Council, APCO, the Edison Electric Institute, the Enterprise Wireless Alliance and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

Public Safety Spectrum Alliance representatives had meetings at the FCC, pushing for the agency to change course on the 4.9 GHz band and issue a single national license to FirstNet (see 2305160065). “We expressed our appreciation for the Commission’s approach, that would effectively and fully protect the interests of incumbent users, while also spurring innovation and driving down costs,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 07-100: “We expressed our support for the FirstNet Authority to be awarded a nationwide license for the 4.9 GHz Band and to select the new band manager.” The representatives met with Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington and staff at the Wireless and Public Safety bureaus.

Representatives of the Wi-Fi Alliance discussed with FCC staff a “package of specifications” now complete for evaluating 6 GHz standard-power devices. “Presentation of this package culminates a multiyear effort by Wi-Fi Alliance members to advance the 6 GHz Wi-Fi ecosystem,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295: “We expressed hope that these specifications will support and expedite the Commission’s effort to authorize 6 GHz standard power devices. We also expressed our continuing commitment to assist the Commission toward that goal.” Wi-Fi advocates hope for FCC action soon on a 2020 Further NPRM on 6 GHz operations (see 2306230046).

Verizon had initiated location-based routing for 56 public safety answering points nationwide as of July 7, with another 244 in progress, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-64. Verizon said it met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff at the bureau’s request. “To determine whether device-based hybrid location information provided by the device during a call is adequate for routing, Verizon uses an accuracy threshold of 200 meters maximum horizontal uncertainty with confidence of 90 percent,” the filing said: “Verizon uniformly applies this threshold for all PSAPs, which was derived based on testing and analysis across many different jurisdictions and morphologies.”