Autel Robotics USA asked the FCC for a waiver of the commission's 60 GHz power limit rules for a radar system that could help “avoid collisions” and “ensure the accurate landing and safe flight” of commercial drones. Autel drones are targeted for “high-rise fire protection, forest fire prevention, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, environmental monitoring, emergency communication, medical rescue and so on,” said a filing posted Friday. By using the proposed “omnidirectional radar system, the drone can work in all-time and all-weather conditions without colliding with structures, wires and other small obstacles,” Autel said.

Marcus Spectrum Solutions called for random testing of wireless emergency alerts and other parts of the emergency alert system. “The Commission and its partners in other agencies must start planning in a careful and deliberate way to implement a small fraction of EAS and WEA testing at times that happen throughout the day and are not precisely announced with the exact date and time,” Marcus said in comments posted Wednesday in docket 15-94: “At present all such tests have the time and date announced with typically 2 months advanced notice.” Marcus noted the EAS became operational Jan. 1, 1997, and 25 years “should have been enough time to allow some random testing at odd hours to verify that no industry changes have resulted in unanticipated issues that are hidden by having only preannounced tests during the prime shift.”

Sirius XM Radio asked the FCC to address issues it raised in a recent petition for rulemaking on certification test procedures for Part 20 wideband consumer signal boosters (WCSBs). “Although the current WCSB test procedures provide a so-called ‘band verification test,’ they do not protect licensees in and around these bands from interference,” SiriusXM said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 10-4: “As a result, WCSBs that are sold for international operations may be properly tested and legally certified for the U.S. market despite having the inherent capability of unlawful operations in the forbidden [commercial mobile radio service] bands.” The filing said the petition “seeks to eliminate this incongruity in the law whereby WCSBs capable of operating outside their authorized bands are eligible for FCC certification, yet ineligible for marketing under the rules and polices” of the Enforcement Bureau.

More than a third of NTIA’s current staff was added in 2022, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson blogged Friday. “NTIA is like a start-up within the federal government, despite being nearly 45 years old. We’ve had the explosive growth of a new organization in my first year at the helm,” he said: “While NTIA is still a small agency by government standards, we punched above our weight class in 2022. We delivered on programs to improve Internet connectivity while also notching big wins on spectrum policy, international standards, and other important tech policy issues.” Davidson cited as wins this year the spectrum coordination agreement with the FCC (see 2208020076) and the election of American Doreen Bogdan-Martin as secretary-general of the ITU (see 2209290044).

Although Ligado says it's not moving forward for now with a full deployment of its proposed terrestrial network, a stay of the FCC's authorization is still warranted given that Ligado retains the authority to move forward, Iridium said Tuesday in docket 12-340. It dismissed Ligado criticism of the National Academies of Sciences report findings (see 2211170056), and said the NAS committee focused its technical work on the one issue regarding harmful interference that was in dispute. Ligado didn't comment.

Strand Consult warned that 2023 will be a “wild, uncomfortable year,” with the upheaval ahead having big implications for the mobile wireless industry. “There is war in Europe, a global energy crisis, and inflation which has made almost everything more expensive and disrupted many financial markets. China’s menace in Taiwan puts the world’s leaders on edge and imperils the supply of 90 percent of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing,” CEO John Strand blogged Thursday: “Board leaders and directors should ask themselves what is their plan [in the] case of China shutting down supply lines tomorrow.” He warned of implications for wireless. “Rising interest rates depress returns on capital, and investors' willingness to invest in infrastructure,” Strand said. “Relationships with authoritarian governments pose reputational risks,” it said: “An operator can’t stick its head into the ground and pretend nothing is happening. Indeed operators which have opted out of Huawei and ZTE will gain an advantage over those which claim that there are no risks to using Chinese network equipment. … This message will resonate with policymakers, customers, and shareholders.” Strand also noted many questions about spectrum, with Congress failing to reauthorize FCC auction authority beyond a three-month extension. “It’s hard to contemplate a modern nation being so irresponsible,” he said. “It is remarkable that the US has achieved such incredible wireless success to date given the limited access to frequencies. But to compete with China in the future, the US will need a more aggressive approach to making mid-band spectrum available for exclusive licensed use,” he said.

Reliance on a content delivery network for weather and earth science data if the 1675-1680 MHz band gets shared raises concerns because a CDN won't provide the latency and availability that users of the geostationary operational environmental satellite data collection system and rebroadcast system require, weather and earth science interests and allies told an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, per a docket 21-186 filing Friday. They said the level of availability needed for GOES rebroadcast service isn't commercially available from cloud and internet providers. Among those meeting with the FCC were National Weather Association CEO Janice Bunting and American Meteorological Society President Richard Clark. Ligado proposed an internet-based CDN as a route to freeing up the 1675-1680 MHz band for flexible use (see 1607280022).

Charter Communications voluntarily dropped some speed and reliability claims for its Spectrum Mobile service after challenges by AT&T, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division said Thursday. NAD said AT&T challenged TV commercial claims that Spectrum Mobile is the "most reliable" mobile service, more reliable than AT&T Wireless and has faster mobile speeds than AT&T Wireless, and that ATT&T Wireless lacks "speed you need."

Federated Wireless defended advanced sharing technologies in a meeting with FCC International Bureau staff. Federated offered “an overview of the successes of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service spectrum sharing model, including its effective protection of different types of incumbent systems as well as the innovation and competition it has stimulated and the new entrants it has brought to the market,” said a filing Thursday in docket 19-348. New entrants “are using the band to develop their own private networks for uses such as industrial automation, smart inventory management, and predictive maintenance, in environments ranging from warehouses, factories, farms, school campuses, and office buildings, in rural as well as densely populated areas,” Federated said. CTIA raised questions about CBRS as the optimal model for spectrum allocation, saying it’s inferior to exclusive use licensing and questioning how successful the CBRS experiment has been (see 2212120050). In less than three years, “nearly 300,000 CBRS devices have been deployed nationwide, a record number of users have adopted CBRS spectrum (228 Priority Access Licensees and 900 General Authorized Access users), and a large ecosystem of U.S. equipment suppliers and vendors has emerged,” Federated said.

The Wireless ISP Association raised a red flag Thursday on the response by NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson to a letter led by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., urging NTIA to allow states to use their broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program grants to pay for unlicensed wireless service, which the agency’s notice of funding opportunity guidance doesn’t allow (see 2211220076). Davidson responded this week, saying the BEAD notice of funding opportunity “contains provisions specifically designed to address the concerns about overbuilding you raised in your letter.” The program also includes “a specific provision to prevent overbuilding due to potentially duplicative federal funding commitment,” Davidson said. “Discouraged @NTIAgov head Davidson misses fundamental issue -- BEAD NOFO’s lack of tech-neutrality -- in response to Senator Daines’ concerns over harmful overbuilding,” WISPA tweeted Thursday. NTIA didn't comment.