Aviation groups and companies wrote top administration officials seeking to extend 5G C-band mitigation measures agreed to by AT&T and Verizon, as airlines work to retrofit aircraft. The letter said negotiations with carriers may not be enough to guarantee safety and warned that talks could be at an impasse. AT&T and Verizon voluntarily agreed in June to continue interference mitigations around airports through July 2023 (see 2206210059), but the aviation interests ask that protections be extended through the end of 2023. The new restrictions could apply to other carriers, including T-Mobile and UScellular, that take possession next year of the licenses they bought in the C-band auction. Their bids were dwarfed by Verizon’s and AT&T’s, but T-Mobile committed $9.3 billion to C-band spectrum and UScellular almost $1.3 billion. The letter was addressed to National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and top officials at the Commerce and Transportation departments, the FAA and the NTIA, but not the FCC. The FCC declined comment Wednesday. “After a year of discussions and despite accommodations made by all parties, we are now seven months away from the next deadline, with significant risks still unresolved,” said the letter, dated Tuesday: “We believe that by finding accommodations now, we can prevent another last-minute herculean intervention by the Administration and major disruption to our air transport system.” The aviation industry supports 5G deployment, but “we will not compromise aviation safety,” the letter said. The letter notes the FAA verified that certain aircraft radio altimeters (RAs) are susceptible to interference from 5G signals. “Since January 2022 the FAA has documented over 100 FAA incidents of potential 5G interference, the majority of which were found to have a direct RA impact resulting in safety alerts by systems such as the Terrain Avoidance Warning System,” the letter said. It said that “US government agencies do not appear to be on the same page with respect to these safety issues” and “aviation stakeholders are caught in the middle.” The coalition signing the letter included the Aerospace Industries Association, the Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute, the Air Line Pilots Association, Airbus, the Aircraft Electronics Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Airlines for America, Boeing, Collins Aerospace, Garmin, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the International Air Transport Association, the National Air Carrier Association and Thales. AT&T and Verizon didn't comment. “You should expect us to have C band pretty much everywhere we have the 4G network today,” Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis said at a Morgan Stanley European conference Wednesday. He wasn't asked about the aviation industry letter. Verizon covered 160 million POPs with C band Q3 and expects to hit 200 million Q1, he said. “The team has done a phenomenal job building [C-band] out since we started a little over a year and a half ago,” he said. C-band capital expenditure will peak this year at as much as $6 billion and “will come down next year and ... the year after as well,” Ellis said.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise asked for a waiver of FCC indoor use labeling requirement to allow previously authorized U-NII-3 access points (APs) to operate in the U-NII-4 band. In its 5.9 GHz order, the FCC “observed that consumers would likely benefit from the U-NII-4 rules in part because many existing U-NII-3 APs could access the U-NII-4 band via software upgrades and would not require any hardware changes,” said a filing posted Tuesday. “The Commission also recognized that some of these APs might not be able to comply with the labeling requirement,” HPE said: “Therefore, the Commission ‘encourage[d] manufacturers to file for a waiver’ … as long as the AP satisfies the other indoor operation requirements, noting that the Office of Engineering and Technology would act expeditiously on these requests under its delegated authority to oversee equipment authorization.”

The FCC should reject a petition by AT&T asking the regulator not to grant T-Mobile additional mid-band licenses in the 2.5 GHz band because of the carrier’s already dominant position in the band (see 2211100066), T-Mobile said in a Monday opposition. T-Mobile noted AT&T didn’t even participate in the auction. “The Petition presents the remarkable spectacle of AT&T -- the beneficiary of structural competitive advantages for decades and the recent recipient of massive amounts of prime 3.45 GHz and C-band spectrum -- asserting that T-Mobile’s minor screen overages resulting from Auction 108 constitute a competitive harm,” T-Mobile said: “Strikingly, the Petition does not provide a single fact to support its claims that T-Mobile’s participation in the 2.5 GHz auction is part of an anticompetitive foreclosure strategy to raise AT&T’s costs.” What AT&T asks isn’t allowable under the law, T-Mobile said: “AT&T is effectively asking the Commission to rewrite the auction rules after the auction has concluded. However, the time for AT&T to seek reconsideration of the Auction 108 rules has long passed.” T-Mobile filed Monday in the FCC’s universal licensing system.

Representatives of ITS America urged the FCC to approve cellular vehicle-to-everything waiver requests to use the 5.9 GHz band, in meetings with staff for Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks. The group “discussed the need for expeditious grant of waiver requests to deploy V2X systems pending adoption of a Second Report and Order in this proceeding; the necessity of continued coordination between the FCC, other government agencies, and the transportation industry; as well as a potential reimbursement mechanism for incumbent licensees required to transition their operations,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 19-138. Industry players hope for FCC action soon on the waiver requests, some of which have been pending since December (see 2209010047).

CTIA and the National Consumer Law Center jointly asked the FCC to extend by two weeks the Nov. 25 deadline for reply comments on possible robotext rules. Initial comments were due last week (see 2211140030). “The current reply comment period leaves insufficient time for parties to review the extensive comments in this complex proceeding and develop a complete record for the Commission’s consideration,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-402. “The reply comment period is effectively cut in half by two federal holidays, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving Day, which fall within the reply comment period,” the groups said: “These events create significant challenges to parties’ ability to review the record, formulate positions with internal stakeholders and constituent members, and draft reply comments that substantively respond to the initial comments.”

A top DOD spectrum official defended the citizens broadband radio service band, writing in a new posting released as CTIA questioned whether CBRS is really the sharing model of the future (see 2211140062). “Dubbed by some as ‘the Innovation Band,’ CBRS offers the some of the features of traditional wireless and Wi-Fi, but with lower fixed costs, higher quality, greater efficiency, and increased security,” said Vernita Harris, DOD director-spectrum policy and programs, on LinkedIn Monday. “With CBRS, the U.S. military can continue to use critical radars systems while commercial users have leveraged CBRS in a variety of sectors, ranging from real estate to health care to utilities,” she said. Harris said CBRS shows “unprecedented coordination between federal users, regulators and industry” and benefited from “groundbreaking” automation. “More work lies ahead, but the results of CBRS so far are promising, and those involved in its success so far should be proud,” she said: “The DOD, other federal spectrum users, and industry continue to look for new use cases along with ways to improve the existing CBRS system. Trust across government and industry underpins the development of holistic spectrum solutions for EVERYONE’s benefit.”

Pockets of the U.S. served by T-Mobile remain LTE only, but “the vast majority” of the network is now 5G, said Neville Ray, T-Mobile president-technology, during a New Street and Boston Consulting conference Monday. Ray said in some areas T-Mobile is leaning on a roaming agreement with AT&T, which has opened up some rural markets through its FirstNet build. T-Mobile’s 5G build hit a peak this year and the company will shift “to what we call customer-driven coverage … making sure that we are investing where it really matters, where there is differentiated need for new coverage or additional coverage from T-Mobile,” Ray said. That includes more in-building coverage and some locations T-Mobile hasn’t yet reached, he said. Ray also noted T-Mobile’s work with SpaceX on satellite connections (see 2209150072). The service will be “text- and messaging-based in the early running” but will evolve to provide more “ubiquitous connectivity,” he said. T-Mobile should be positioned to support as many as 8 million fixed wireless customers in 2025, Ray said. “There is a lot of latent demand for the product that we are bringing to the marketplace,” he said: “From a capacity perspective, we have always been very careful and diligent to make sure that we grow this network for fixed wireless in the right places.” T-Mobile announced Monday that it's now lighting up its stand-alone (SA) core network with its 2.5 GHz spectrum. The SA network has been using 600 MHz spectrum since 2020, Ray said. “The move immediately advances T-Mobile’s network -- unleashing faster speeds for customers across the country while further reducing any lag in the network with lower latency, improving applications like gaming that require near real-time responsiveness,” T-Mobile said.

Qualcomm representatives met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff about the company’s geolocation technologies for standard power devices used in the 6 GHz band and how they will “operate in conjunction with an Automated Frequency Coordination system,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-295. OET recently conditionally approved AFC systems in the band, subject to testing (see 2211040055).

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved nine more licenses Monday in the 900 MHz broadband segment awarded to PDV Spectrum. Two were in Missouri, seven in Kansas. The FCC approved an order in 2020 reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband while keeping 4 MHz for narrowband (see 2005130057).

5G is becoming an increasingly important part of how businesses communicate, though what the 5G world will look like is still taking shape, speakers said Monday during a Fierce Wireless virtual enterprise 5G conference. “We’re still in the early days,” said Howard Wu, U.S. general manager for equipment maker Quanta Cloud Technology. “A lot of the enterprises, institutions, large organizations are trying to figure out how to use 5G as an enabled technology,” he said. “5G isn’t an aim in and of itself, it’s an enabler,” said Macquarie Capital’s Oliver Bradley. “The key is what is it you’re ... trying to achieve,” he said. Historically, the cost of capital was high for the kinds of companies now active in 5G, with investors expecting higher rewards because of higher risks, he said: “That attracts a certain cost of capital that’s fairly expensive,” he said. In recent years, traditional infrastructure investors, who are more averse to risk, are now viewing “the digital world” as “the next … utility,” Bradley said. Digital connectivity is now viewed as “an essential service” comparable to water or electricity, he said. “It’s not just a nice-to-have, it’s not just a tech, it’s not just a fashion or a fad,” he said. Enterprise customers are looking for a “seamless, cell-service experience,” more like traditional consumer wireless than the business-to-business communications of the past, “which traditionally had delays and many manual processes and steps,” said Mike Bimm, ServiceNow global head-telecom, media and technology architecture. “As the infrastructure complexity and the service offerings grow, you need to have efficient, automated processes, and that need only increases,” he said. Companies want continuity as they invest in 5G and smart buildings, said Steve Carroll, global account director at communications gear maker Belden. Belden cares about “scalability,” he said: “What are we building today that is going to make sure that we’re not going to have to rip and replace it three years from now?”