The FCC Wireless Bureau adopted rules for a drive-test model, and parameters for the tests required of mobile providers receiving more than $5 million in annual support through the Alaska Plan. Only two providers, GCI and Copper Valley Wireless, exceed the threshold and must provide data, the Thursday order notes. Much of the item addresses various concerns raised by GCI, with some wins and losses. Only GCI filed comments responding to a notice on proposed rules. GCI expressed concerns that speed-test data "would not accurately represent the ability to place a voice call over a 2G network” and “proposed that, instead, providers demonstrate voice coverage by placing voice calls between five and 30 seconds in duration to a telephone number established for test calls,” the order says: “We find GCI’s suggestion to be a reasonable approach, and therefore we will require it. … Because GCI is the only provider subject to drive testing that has a 2G commitment and GCI’s particular 2G requirement is voice only, we agree with GCI that a test assessing the availability of voice service would be appropriate.” GCI lost on other calls. The bureau overrode GCI objections to a rule that at least 50% of drive tests must be conducted from a vehicle in motion. “GCI argues that, instead of basing frames on middle-mile and last-mile technologies, we should assign frames based only on the speeds a provider reports via its FCC Form 477 filings,” the bureau said. “We disagree. The Alaska Drive-Test Model’s integration of middle-mile and last-mile technologies is consistent with the Alaska Plan Order, the Commission’s rules, the provider performance plans that the Bureau approved, and the policy undergirding the Alaska Plan.” The bureau also asked for additional comment on a proposal to require mobile providers “subject to the drive-test requirement to submit new drive-test data consistent with the drive-test model and parameters if they fail to meet a buildout milestone and later seek to cure a compliance gap.” Comment dates will be set in a Federal Register notice. Representatives of the Alaska Telecom Association, meanwhile, spoke with aides to all four commissioners about the “importance of establishing a path forward” on the state plan. “The group discussed the success of the Alaska Plan in supporting the operation, upgrade, and expansion of both fixed and mobile telecommunication services in Alaska,” a filing said: “Plan participants have met or exceeded mid-term benchmarks and will be enabled to continue to improve services for Alaskans throughout the second half of the Plan.”

Dish Network appears to be behind schedule, both in its deployment of 5G and on its move to an open radio access network, said John Strand of Strand Consult after Dish said it's live in Las Vegas (see 2205040057). “With regard to the announcement that they made in relation to the Samsung agreement, it seems that they have had to admit that they cannot meet their deadline with OpenRAN,” Strand emailed Thursday. “They bought Samsung’s [virtual RAN] solution with a promise that it will be OpenRAN compliant at some point,” he said: “Virtualization and cloudification are the global trends. The challenge for OpenRAN players is to achieve the mix and match of vendors while ensuring performance. The OpenRAN optimization for substitutability, energy consumption, network performance, and security has yet to be proven whereas classic 3GPP [3rd Generation Partnership Project] network elements deliver that today. Dish’s story of mixing and matching vendors is not yet a reality.” Strand sees broader challenges ahead. The U.S. remains “an exciting 5G market with dynamism across the value chain,” but “there is no new US spectrum on the table and the FCC’s spectrum authority is about to expire, so policymakers need to step up if the US is to sustain its advantage,” he said.

T-Mobile acted Wednesday to broaden the appeal of its 5G fixed-wireless Home Internet product. The service will now be available for as low as $30/month for families subscribed to Magenta Max. T-Mobile will allow customers to test the service for 15 days for free and is offering to pay up to $500 to cover the cost of early termination fees when switching from another fixed provider. T-Mobile also said Home Internet will be available for all business customers in its wireless footprint. T-Mobile is also offering inducements to switch, including 50% off YouTube TV for a year. CEO Mike Sievert said “with Internet Freedom, we’re taking on Big Internet and bringing the Un-carrier movement to broadband." "The most significant announcements were about new pricing and bundling strategies for fixed wireless broadband,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors: “The initiative will drive faster broadband growth, but with lower ARPU [average revenue per user] . Unclear whether that will be viewed as positive or negative for T-Mobile. It will be viewed as negative for Cable.” T-Mobile said last week it added 338,000 high-speed internet customers in Q1, bringing its total to just under 1 million (see 2204270061).

The Wireless ISP Association board tapped David Zumwalt, an engineer from the industry's business side, as WISPA’s new president. “Zumwalt will oversee the Association’s strategic and daily affairs, including staff for advocacy, membership, policy, and events,” WISPA said Wednesday. He replaces Claude Aiken, who was an aide to former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn before being named president in 2018. Zumwalt was chief operating officer of Broadband VI, an ISP in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before that he was CEO/executive director of the University of the Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park Corp. He also founded and was CEO of CNet, an RF engineering and software company. “It is a crucial time in the industry, and his history of success in several different leadership roles will serve our members during this unprecedented time of broadband growth, government funding, and increased private investment,” WISPA Chairman Todd Harpest said of Zumwalt.

The Wireless Infrastructure Association supported a T-Mobile request that it be allowed to use stage 2 mobile support through a program providing emergency relief to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to pay for the deployment of distributed antenna systems (see 2204180025). “DAS-based deployments are a critical element of reliable, resilient networks because they facilitate high quality connections indoors,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-143: “Granting this simple clarification will ensure service providers on the Islands are able to use every tool available to meet the Stage 2 goals of increasing network resiliency and reliability.”

An AT&T spokesperson confirmed reports that the carrier is raising monthly charges for some wireless subscribers by as much as $6 a month for single-line customers and up to $12 a month for families. “We are adjusting prices on some of our older wireless plans, which have not seen an increase in three years,” a spokesperson emailed Tuesday: “We are encouraging our customers to explore our newer plans which offer many additional features, more flexibility for each line on their account and, in many cases, a lower monthly cost.” Bloomberg reported the development Tuesday, citing information sent to staff in multiple AT&T stores.

Representatives of Intel, Meta Platforms and Qualcomm met virtually with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff to offer their take on revised rules for radars in the 60 GHz band (see 2110180062). “Even in the most conservative test configuration, three communications links can operate in three adjacent channels within the 57-64 GHz band with minor impact on latency performance,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-264. Operations under standard 802.11 ad/ay “have several attributes, like channelization and channel sensing, that radar operations lack that allow for successful co-existence of multiple communications links operating at the same time,” the companies said: “Higher power radar operations, as proposed in the NPRM, may occupy the entire 57-64 GHz band without any sharing mechanism.”

Microsoft urged the FCC to retain its current rules for narrowband TV white spaces devices (WSD), which allow for “a once daily database recheck interval and allows a narrowband WSD device that is temporarily unable to contact the database to continue operations until 11:59 PM the following day.” That requirement has been in place for six years “without any reported incidents of harmful interference,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-165: Compared with other devices, “the risk of harmful interference from narrowband WSDs is even more remote. These low power devices can only operate in areas with three contiguous White Spaces channels, limiting their operations to less populated areas where multiple channels are necessarily available for other operations.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau will immediately start accepting applications for the certification of contraband interdiction systems and to be a designated correctional facility official (DCFO) as part of the agency’s ongoing work to prevent contraband wireless devices in correctional facilities. Tuesday's notice follows a July order on disabling devices once detected (see 2107130029). The DCFO will “ensure that parties making disabling requests have the necessary authority and accountability to safeguard the integrity of the contraband device identification and disabling process,” the bureau said.

Dish Network will use products from Samsung Electronics throughout its 5G open radio access network, the companies said Tuesday. “Per the multi-year agreement, the companies will collaborate to deploy Samsung's 5G O-RAN-compliant virtualized RAN (vRAN) solutions and radio units in markets across the U.S., supporting DISH's 5G commercial services,” they said. Samsung will supply “vRAN software and a variety of O-RAN compliant radio units, including Massive MIMO radios,” which “can operate on any commercial off-the-shelf server, while still delivering performance on par with traditional hardware-based equipment,” said a news release.