DOD’s Blue UAS program has been a success in speeding the roll-out of interoperable unmanned aircraft systems, speakers said Wednesday during an Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International webinar. “Small UAS is still a very nascent, small industry,” said Matthew Borowski, technical program manager at DOD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). “We can make sure that we have a place to build off of,” he said. “You have to start from somewhere where you can get from zero to flight quickly,” he said. The program has focused on standards for drones, he said. “Interoperability has to be at the front of everyone’s minds and if we don’t have standards we can’t achieve that,” he said. Blue UAS also publishes a list of cleared drone systems, he said. DIU doesn’t invent anything, but works with industry to fill “gaps” in technology, he said. Ashish Parikh, vice president-business development, Doodle Labs, which manufactures drone radios, said he’s not sure the company would have gone after the market without the “ecosystem” created by DIU. The program helped the company navigate the requirements of DOD and the Army, which uses its radios, Parikh said. “It also gave us confidence that there are probably going to be multiple users” of the radio, he said. The radios are being used to communicate with drones in Ukraine, deep behind enemy lines, and Doodle now has a commercial radio available using the same technologies, he said. DOD recently raised the profile of DIU. The head of DIU used to report to the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, but under a memo this week from Secretary Lloyd Austin the unit will report directly to the secretary. Austin appointed Doug Beck, vice president-worldwide education, health, and government at Apple, as DIU director Tuesday .

Samsung Electronics America asked the FCC to move quickly on its request to market and operate a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see [Ref:2303100019). Charter Communications was the lone commenter to urge caution. As with initial comments, there were two replies, posted Wednesday in docket 23-93. “Both commenters in the record -- one operator and one manufacturer -- support grant of a waiver,” Samsung said. “Defer acting on Samsung’s petition until interested stakeholders have had a reasonable opportunity to review and comment on the results of Samsung’s tests on whether and how its novel dual-band transmitter satisfies the CBRS out-of-band emissions and in-band emissions levels in each mode in which the Samsung base station can operate,” Charter said: If the FCC decides to approve the radio now it should “condition any grant on Samsung immediately ceasing operations if the base station causes harmful interference to CBRS operations.”

APCO opposed a waiver sought by the Wi-Fi Alliance of rules for the predictive propagation models that an automated frequency coordination system must employ in the 6 GHz band (see 2303210039). The waiver of a rule is appropriate “if special circumstances warrant a deviation from the general rule and such deviation will serve the public interest and will not undermine the policy underlying the rule,” APCO said, posted Wednesday in docket 23-107: “Wi-Fi Alliance has not demonstrated that special circumstances warrant deviation from the rule. Nor has it shown that such deviation will serve the public interest.”

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom now has majority ownership of T-Mobile U.S., DT CEO Tim Hottges said Wednesday, during the company’s annual meeting live-streamed from Bonn. "We have the majority and are the largest shareholder of the world's most valuable telecommunications company, T-Mobile U.S.," he said. Hottges said DT hit majority status Tuesday, and holds 50.2% of stock, compared to three years ago, after the Sprint buy, when the stake was 43%. “Achieving a majority has been a stated goal of Deutsche Telekom since the 2021 Capital Markets Day,” the company said.

Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld suggested tweaks to the receiver principles teed up for the April 20 FCC meeting (see 2303300070), in a call with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Feld noted a footnote to the draft “refers to the Commission’s Section 154(i) authority as ‘ancillary authority,’” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-122: “This misstates the nature of the authority granted by Section 154(i)” which “provides direct authority to the Commission to ‘to perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders’ as necessary to fulfill its obligations” under the Communications Act. Feld said “although the Commission distinguishes between specific services and general authorizations under Part 15, the Commission may wish to note that the D.C. Circuit has held that the same standard of what constitutes ‘harmful interference’ applies to unlicensed as well as licensed services.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment Tuesday on a request by Stadler Signalling Deutschland GmbH to operate its automatic train protection system in the 100 kHz band at higher power levels than FCC rules allow. Comments are due May 4, replies May 19, in docket 23-133. “Stadler states its train protection system is intended to protect train movements, prevent red signal overruns, and train-to-train collisions on tracks used for passenger service,” OET said: “Stadler claims its system will provide lifesaving information without the risk of causing harmful interference.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau granted a license in Pennsylvania Tuesday in the 900 MHz broadband segment to PDV Spectrum. The FCC approved an order in 2020 reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband, while keeping 4 MHz for narrowband operations (see 2005130057).

Mint Mobile, which T-Mobile has announced plans to buy (see 2303150032), said Monday its low-cost plans now offer more data at the same rates. The cheapest plan, $15 per month for 4 GB, now provides 5GB, Mint said. The $30 plan, which previously included 35 GB of 5G-LTE data and 5 GB for hot spot use, increases to 40 GB and 10 GB. Higher data limits kick in April 14. “Mint keeps things simple -- subscribers don’t need to enroll, register or take action of any kind,” the company said: “All their data will be automatically upgraded so they can immediately start using even more data each month on their existing plans.”

Continental Automotive Systems representatives met with an aide to Commissioner Nathan Simington on concerns over patents for cellular vehicle-to-everything technology. “The Commission’s move to mandate the use of C-V2X in the 5.9 GHz proceeding has unintentionally placed Continental and other suppliers in a precarious situation in relation to the licensing of C-V2X related standard essential patients (SEPs),” said a filing posted Monday in docket 19-138. “With C-V2X now the de facto [intelligent transportation system] communications standard, some C-V2X SEP holders have felt empowered to discriminate against license seekers by refusing to license their technologies at all to some industry participants (e.g., component suppliers like Continental), while other SEP holders insist on license terms that are unfair and unreasonable,” Continental said.

Global 5G wireless connections increased by 76% last year, reaching 1.05 billion, 5G Americas said Monday. North America led the way, with 119 million 5G and 507 million LTE connections by the end of 2022, the group said. ”5G is growing remarkably and scaling faster than any other previous generation of mobile wireless,” said 5G Americas President Chris Pearson: “While deployments and connections are added at a significant pace, the promise of 5G will be realized by technological progress in areas like standalone architecture and network slicing for new use cases.”