CTIA urged the FCC to take costs into consideration as it considers an NPRM on wireless emergency alerts and the emergency alert system, set for a commissioner vote Thursday (see 2210060062). “CTIA understands the Commission’s interest in continuing to examine alerting security and avoiding false alerts,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 15-94. “The Commission will need to carefully consider the costs and benefits of new authentication requirements,” CTIA said: “Developing new cryptographic standards to enable authentication capabilities would require a much larger investment of time and resources than what is currently contemplated in the Draft Alerting Security NPRM. Moreover, such requirements could negatively impact the timely and reliable delivery of WEAs.”

Fixed-wireless provider Starry announced Thursday it's cutting its workforce by 50%, or more than 500 workers, and imposing a freeze on hiring and nonessential expenditures. Starry said it's refocusing on “dense urban markets with multi-tenant buildings” and withdrawing from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program. The company also withdrew full-year guidance for 2022. “The aggressive measures we announced today were needed to curtail our cash burn while we pursue strategic options,” said CEO Chet Kanojia: “This is an extremely difficult economic climate and capital environment, and at present we don’t have the capital to fund our rapid growth. … Today is a very tough day for our Starry team, but I want to be clear: Starry remains open for business.” Starry stock dropped 16.67% to close at $1.10.

Low-flying drone radars aren't an interference risk for incumbents and should be allowed in the 60 GHz band, Amazon said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-264. “The Commission should formally recognize that new drone use cases conducted near ground level differ greatly from traditional commercial aviation use cases,” Amazon said: “A drone package delivery operating near ground level operates much more like a last-mile delivery truck than a cargo plane. The current one-size-fits-all standard fails to account for these unique differences, and the rules and restrictions specifically tailored to traditional commercial aviation should not apply to drone operations near ground level.”

CTIA supports a proposed notice of inquiry on the 12.7 GHz band, teed up for an FCC commissioner vote next week (see 2210060062), said a filing posted Thursday in docket 22-352. “By focusing on high power, exclusive use licenses, the Commission can provide certainty and predictability to licensees, which are needed to continue driving innovation and investment in network development and deployment,” CTIA said: “Allocating flexible, exclusive use licenses in the 13 GHz band could play a key role in supporting rapidly growing consumer and business needs for next-generation mobile broadband services.”

Montana’s Triangle Communications has fully replaced unsecure network gear under the FCC’s rip-and-replace program, installing an open radio access network from Mavenir, the companies said Wednesday. The move comes before the carrier receives funding from the FCC. It's an "end-to-end turnkey solution with all products based on O-RAN interfaces … with all components upgradeable to 5G,” said Mavenir CEO Pardeep Kohli. “Mavenir has on a turnkey basis replaced the Chinese network components untrusted by the US government and others, with American headquartered Mavenir open, network infrastructure,” the companies said.

5G-advanced requires mobile data traffic consumption to increase at higher rates than is now expected to justify investment, Dell’Oro Group said Tuesday. Expected annual growth rates for data are 30% over the next five years, the firm said: “At these rates of growth, existing sub-6 GHz and Millimeter Wave (mmWave) spectrum allocations will be more than enough to support another 10x of mobile data traffic expansion by 2030.” Video could be a “game changer,” Dell’Oro said. “With the typical phone user still spending less than 5% of total smartphone screen time streaming videos on the wireless network, the successful introduction of a new virtual reality or augmented reality device for the masses that would trigger a change in behavior -- increasing the amount of time users spend consuming video on the mobile network.” Industry also needs to rethink the role of high-band spectrum, Dell’Oro said: “While mmWave has come a long way in just a few years, the reality is that the sub-6 GHz spectrum continues to represent the most economical solution, enabling operators to minimize the need for incremental cell sites. Not surprisingly, mmWave still comprises less than 2% of global RAN investments.” The radio access network is “just one piece of the larger connectivity puzzle,” the firm said. “As Huawei representatives pointed out during the company’s Connect 2022 Summit, the shift toward 5G-Advanced needs to be accompanied by improvements in core, storage, computing, optical, and data communications, to name just a few areas,” it said.

Steel company Cleveland-Cliffs agreed to pay a $50,000 fine for acquiring various wireless licenses without FCC authorization as part of its buy of AK Steel Holding and ArcelorMittal USA, the FCC Enforcement Bureau said. The company also agreed to implement a compliance plan, said the Wednesday order. Both transactions were completed in 2020. “This resolution reinforces the Commission’s commitment to ensuring that the transfer and assignment of wireless authorizations is limited to instances where the Commission has determined that the transfer or assignment is in the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” the bureau said: “The Bureau’s Investigation revealed that, in all, Cleveland-Cliffs and its subsidiaries completed six substantial transfers of control affecting 59 licenses held directly or indirectly by AK Steel and ArcelorMittal USA under six licensee names without first obtaining prior Commission consent.”

The FCC told T-Mobile, Verizon and other wireless carriers Wednesday it largely rejected their requests that the agency not release the data they were required to disclose on their propagation models and the link budgets they use for modeling cell-edge network throughput, as part of the agency’s broadband data collection (see here and here). The Wireless Bureau said it required the disclosure of “(1) all applicable link-budgets used to design their networks and provide service at the defined speeds, and all parameters and parameter values included in those link budgets; (2) a description of how the carrier developed its link budget(s) and the rationale for using specific values in the link budget(s); and (3) the name of the creator, developer or supplier, as well as the vintage of the terrain and clutter datasets used, the specific resolution of the data (subject to the minimum requirements adopted in the Second Order), a list of clutter categories used, a description of each clutter category, and a description of the propagation loss due to clutter for each.” The bureau cited “a strong public interest in making the above-described information for which” the carrier “seeks confidential treatment available to the public.” But the bureau said “for the first public release” it won’t release providers’ link budget parameters rationale “because we find that the potential benefits of making” that information public “may not outweigh the potential harm in its disclosure, as filers may have disclosed inadvertently competitively sensitive information that will allow competitors or others to gain insight into filers’ internal business operations.” Identical letters went to Dish Wireless, Southern Linc, Central Louisiana Cellular, East Kentucky Network and other carriers, all posted in docket 19-195.

Verizon is selling its Straight Talk Home Internet service, at $45 monthly, exclusively at Walmart, the carrier said. Verizon got Straight Talk through its recent buy of Tracfone. Verizon bills the offering as “an affordable, no-contract, no-credit-check, prepaid fixed wireless internet service,” which uses the company’s 4G and 5G networks. “Offering more choices that meet the needs of value-conscious consumers -- both inside and outside of the home -- is a critical component of our strategy to serve the entire market,” said Manon Brouillette, CEO-Verizon Consumer Group, in a Monday news release.

Wireless mic maker Shure updated the FCC on its stance on rules for TV white spaces (TVWS) devices, amplifying earlier comments (see 2207050059). Shure said again in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-165 its principal concern in this proceeding is ensuring that wireless microphone users can rely on robust interference protections for the clear, uninterrupted, real-time wireless microphone transmissions that are critical to these users.” In their comments, the Open Technology Institute at New America, Public Knowledge and Microsoft “all decry the lack of available spectrum in the Television Bands in urban, suburban and even rural areas for white space devices (WSDs) as a problem that is particularly burdensome to WSD users,” Shure said: The three “are correct in their base assertion, indeed after two auctions and channel repacking, there is very little TVWS spectrum left. However, this is an even bigger problem for the thousands of microphones, licensed and unlicensed, supporting events and content creation and should not be viewed solely as a limit on the relatively few WSDs currently being utilized in the market.”