The FCC Wireless Bureau granted six more licenses Friday in the 900 MHz broadband segment to PDV Spectrum. Three of the licenses are in Missouri, two in Nebraska and one 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).

Ericsson projects 510 million mobile subscribers worldwide will upgrade to 5G next year. “Despite spiraling inflation, elevated food and energy costs, and rising interest rates during 2022, consumers globally are still planning to upgrade to 5G,” said the report last week. Consumers report they would cut spending on pay TV, video on demand, music and sports streaming subscriptions before mobile wireless, the report said: “Despite global economic uncertainty, 5G users value reliable connectivity and the majority of existing 5G users are unwilling to return to 4G.” Ericsson said it interviewed online 49,100 consumers in 37 markets.

T-Mobile will hold its Q3 earnings call Oct. 27, starting at 4:30 p.m. EDT, the company said Thursday.

MoffettNathanson lowered its outlook for the stock prices of major tower companies Thursday, citing rising interest rates and the negative impact on adjusted funds from operations. The firm cut its target for Crown Castle to $152 from $186; for SBA, to $285 from $360; and for American Tower, to $204 from $275. Dish Network “is widely expected to be a key driver of tower leasing in coming years, but higher funding costs add additional risk to what we have characterized as a fairly speculative business plan,” analyst Craig Moffett told investors.

A study by utility FirstEnergy said contention-based protocols or low-power-indoor operations aren’t enough to curb interference to fixed-service operations by utilities in the 6 GHz band. “The experimental results confirm an additive interference effect when more than one [device] is simultaneously operating co-channel with the FS system,” the report said: “The study only represented a small sampling of sites and there are anticipated to be hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of future unlicensed Wi-Fi 6E sources of interference along each microwave path.” Researchers studied the effects of two Wi-Fi 6E devices on two microwave paths of an existing, incumbent FS station in central New Jersey. Commissioners approved a Further NPRM 5-0 in April 2020 (see 2004230059) that examines further liberalization of the agency’s 6 GHz rules.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau cited Ride208 for allegedly selling a two-way radio without the required authorizations from the agency. The company also didn’t provide complete responses to an FCC letter of inquiry sent last year, said a citation in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The radio operates in family radio service and general mobile radio service channels. “We direct Ride208 to ... refrain from the importation, distribution, and offering for sale noncompliant radio frequency devices in the future,” the bureau said: “If Ride208 fails to comply … it may be liable for significant fines of up to $22,021 per day for each violation of unauthorized marketing or each day of a continuing violation for each unauthorized model marketed and up to $165,159 for any single act or failure to act, as well as other sanctions.” The company didn’t comment.

Wi-Fi equipment makers disputed arguments by AT&T that the FCC shouldn’t provide further flexibility for unlicensed 6 GHz devices without a requirement for automated frequency coordination. “There is no time urgency to act on the proposals to raise the LPI [low power indoor] power limit or to authorize VLP [very low-power] operations because it is now apparent that the use cases supporting those proposals can be realized under AFC control,” AT&T said last month (see 2209120027). “AT&T’s assertion is simply incorrect,” said the equipment makers' filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. “There are significant costs to develop, deploy, and operate an AFC-coordinated device,” the companies said: Costs include “geolocation capabilities, additional installation requirements, support for the AFC-to-device protocol interface, changes to radio resource management algorithms to incorporate AFC frequency and power inputs, updates to the user interface to reflect AFC operational aspects, and recurring costs associated with the AFC system. AFC coordination also introduces significant complexity for installation and ongoing operational management.” Cisco, Extreme Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks signed the letter.

Comments are due Nov. 10, replies Nov. 25, in the FCC’s NPRM (docket 21-402) to require wireless providers to block texts “at the network level” that purport to be from invalid, unallocated or unused numbers, plus numbers on a Do-Not-Originate list, said a notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register. The FCC is seeking comment (see 2209270070) “on the extent to which spoofing is a problem” for text messaging and what things the commission can do “to encourage providers to identify and block texts that appear to come from spoofed numbers,” it said. The agency also wants to know about the practicality of “applying caller ID authentication standards” to text messaging, it said. Wireless carriers and other texting service providers "should monitor and participate in the proceeding because the outcome will directly affect them by requiring many to upgrade their technology and change some of their operational practices," blogged the Cooley law firm. "Businesses that send out automatic text messages to consumers may be affected if the technology or methods used to deliver these messages is restricted or banned."

Open radio access networks and network disaggregation are driving the need for automation, said Ruth Brown, Heavy Reading principal analyst-mobile networks and 5G, during a Light Reading webinar Tuesday. “Disaggregation has happened in all areas across the 5G networks,” she said: “We’re able to avoid vendor lock-in,” Brown said. “We’re able to share network resources, and also it supports a lot of flexibility.” Network slicing, which allows carriers to create multiple unique logical and virtualized networks within their network, requires built-in automation, Brown said. “We want to allow an operator to rapidly provision a network slice, to be able to configure this network slice and to be able to adapt as we get fluctuating demands,” she said. Automation is also more important for edge networks, she said. Automation “would allow people to place applications or functions in the correct locations at the edge of the network,” she said. The benefits of virtualization emerge only when the radio access network is virtualized, said Sandeep Sharma, global head-5G/RAN/ORAN at India-based Tech Mahindra. “We see more and more use cases getting automated in an open environment,” he said. ORAN and cloud technologies are well-developed, but the biggest challenge is a “lack of understanding” among providers, he said. Open networks are complex and automation is “a must to have to achieve all the efficiencies,” he said. Telcos are looking for cost savings and flexibility as they consider ORAN and moving more operations to the cloud, said Srihari Mallavarapu, Intel ecosystem development leader. Carriers “believe that by bringing in more players” it will help them cut costs, he said. With current networks making any changes “takes a long time -- they can’t do much innovation,” he said. ORAN requires automation, since the network itself is disaggregated, with hardware separate from software and multiple vendors involved, Mallavarapu said. Managing the network manually “will cause lots of trouble, and it’s almost impossible,” he said.

The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council urged the FCC to act soon to renew the FirstNet Authority’s band 14 license. The group said it takes no stand on issues raised by the National Sheriffs Association and the Major Cities Chiefs Association (see 2209070059) and 2208250056) and “to the extent the Commission decides to pursue those issues” that shouldn’t delay renewal. The license “will expire in mid-November, just slightly over a month away,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-94: “NPSTC believes the significant work accomplished to date to stand up the [network], and the resulting broadband service utilizing Band 14, are both too important to the public safety community to let the license lapse.”