Public safety, critical infrastructure and other 6 GHz incumbents said they met with staff for all four FCC commissioners to seek action on a March 31 letter asking for protection from unlicensed use of the band. The incumbents asked for “action” on a “longstanding petition for rulemaking, including cost recovery for incumbent licensees” in the band, “improvements in interference detection, identification, reporting, tracking, and elimination … including the creation of a centralized interference reporting point that is publicly available,” an opportunity to comment on a proposal to extend automated frequency coordination requirements to all uses of the band and “sufficient time provided for review and completion of real-world testing of AFC systems before implementation,” and other protections. Representatives of APCO, the Edison Electric Institute, the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Southern Company Services and the Utilities Technology Council were at the meetings, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295.

Oppositions are due May 16 to a March petition (see 2303300060) asking for changes to the FCC’s January 4.9 GHz order (see 2301180062), said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. Replies are due May 26, in docket 07-100. The group said the band should be “preserved for use by state and local agencies to enhance public safety.”

The Shortwave Modernization Coalition (SMC) asked the FCC to launch a rulemaking to amend its eligibility and technical rules for industrial/business pool licensees to authorize licensed use of frequencies above 2 MHz and below 25 MHz for fixed, long-distance, non-voice communications. “Through extensive independent research and technological experimentation” SMC members “have confirmed that frequencies in the under-licensed 2-25 MHz Band are the optimal medium for fixed, long-distance transmission of time-sensitive data,” said the petition, posted Monday. Members “have concluded … that it is technologically feasible for their proposed Part 90 2-25 MHz Band operations to coexist with other 2-25 MHz Band licensees and with each other,” they said. Through experimental use of 2-25 MHz band frequencies “SMC members have developed and refined technologies to, among other things, enhance spectrum sharing in the band without materially increasing the risk of harmful interference to other authorized … users,” SMC said.

Combining satellite and terrestrial networks is critical to the next stage of broadband deployment, providing broadband to many people at an affordable cost, said John Baras, systems engineering professor at the University of Maryland, Thursday at a meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. “You cannot put fiber everywhere,” he said. Most agree 5G “has not fulfilled the promise from several years ago” and “there are several reasons for that,” Baras said. If you combine broadband satellite, both geostationary orbit and low-earth orbit, with terrestrial wireless, you can offer broadband “to many more people at much lower prices,” he said. We need to find a way for at least 80% of the world’s population to have access to broadband, he said. “If we learned anything from the pandemic it’s that if you don’t have broadband you cannot do education, you cannot do healthcare, you cannot do manufacturing,” he said. Baras said AI and machine learning are critical to the future networks, but warned it must be scalable.

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo appointed Richard Carrizzo Thursday the new chair of the FirstNet Authority. Carrizzo is fire chief for the Southern Platte Fire Protection District in Missouri and joined the FirstNet board in 2018. He had been vice chair. Carrizzo replaces Stephen Benjamin who left at the end of March for a White House job (see 2303010031).

T-Mobile added 538,000 postpaid phone customers in Q1, with 523,000 added to its home internet service. Home internet now has 3.2 million subscribers, the carrier said. T-Mobile reported after the close of the markets Thursday. Postpaid phone churn was 0.89%. Net income was $1.9 billion, up 172% year over year, while service revenue of $15.5 billion grew 3% over last year. CEO Mike Sievert said on a call with analysts T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint three years ago is now being seen as “the most successful merger in telecom history.” T-Mobile raised its annual guidance to net customers adds for the year to 5.3 million-5.7 million, up from 5-5.5 million. The carrier also increased its guidance on most financial metrics.

Citing Dish Network business challenges including its spending on its retail wireless business and the slow enterprise adoption of private 5G networks, S&P Global said Thursday it's lowering the company's credit rating. It said Dish needs substantial access to capital while the credit environment tightens and its capital structure "may be unsustainable long term" due to higher interest rates and big refinancing requirements starting next year. It said Dish will likely need to raise $4 billion to $5 billion next year, another $2 billion to $3 billion in 2025 and $7 billion to $8 billion in 2026. Dish has $15 billion of unencumbered spectrum assets, but its ability "to successfully refinance its maturity wall in 2026 will depend on its ability to demonstrate that its wireless business can be profitable at scale, which remains highly uncertain," S&P said. Dish didn't comment.

Pacific Gas & Electric filed at the FCC a new study, which it said raises additional concerns on the interference threat from unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band. PG&E “has repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of unlicensed use of the 6 GHz licensed band, and over the past two years, real-world testing and filings by a variety of utility companies, research institutions, and trade associations have validated that concern,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. The study's key finding is that “over 50 links were found to have impact concerns over the next 5 years due to the projected growth of unlicensed Wi-Fi 6E in its territory,” PG&E said: “Additionally, four links showed such severe risk for interference that they are already being moved to 11 GHz channels at significant cost to PG&E.”

Charter Communications should drop or modify advertising claims about its wireless Speed Boost offering, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division said Wednesday. AT&T challenged the ad claims, NAD said, adding the ads give the impression Speed Boost is widely available on mobile devices when it requires a Spectrum home internet plan, Spectrum Mobile plan and device, and that the user be connected to Spectrum Wi-Fi. NAD said its decision doesn't preclude Charter "from making truthful and non-misleading claims about the availability of Speed Boost." Charter didn't comment.

Based on history, the FCC is within its legal rights to award T-Mobile the licenses it won in the 2.5 GHz auction (see 2304060062), the company says in a new filing in the FCC’s universal licensing system. “Four former General Counsels of the Commission recently wrote to explain why they believe that the Commission continues to have authority to grant spectrum licenses notwithstanding the expiration of its power to conduct auctions,” T-Mobile said: “Their conclusion is supported by the actions the Commission and the Office of General Counsel took when the Commission’s authority to conduct lotteries to select from among mutually exclusive applicants expired as the result of an act of Congress.” T-Mobile cites the example of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which required the FCC to use competitive bidding and ended its ability to use a lottery system for awarding most spectrum licenses. “Then, the Commission confronted materially the same situation it faces today: did it have the authority to award licenses to applicants that had been selected via a lottery prior to the expiration of the lottery statute,” the carrier said. At the time, “the Commission held that it had the authority to continue to process the pending applications of successful lottery winners and conduct the necessary public interest review under section 309(a) of the Communications Act,” T-Mobile said Tuesday. Similarly now, the commission has “authority under section 309(a) to process the applications of T-Mobile, a successful bidder in the 2.5 GHz auction, even though that auction authority has now expired,” it said. The Wireless Bureau said “despite the sunset of lottery authority, the applications for already-conducted lotteries could still be processed.” T-Mobile also cited language in the 2003 Ranger Cellular case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which challenged awarding of licenses from the lottery system (see 0307030034). The D.C. circuit “noted the Commission’s conclusion ‘that, although the Balanced Budget Act barred it from conducting new lotteries after July 1, 1997, the Act did not bar the FCC from processing [a company’s] application by using the results of a lottery that had taken place prior to that date,” T-Mobile said.