Representatives of Broadcom, Kyrio and the Wi-Fi Alliance asked the FCC to start approving automated frequency control operators for the 6 GHz band, in a call with Office of Engineering and Technology staff. “The next steps are for OET to conditionally approve applicants that demonstrate that their proposed systems would comply with all AFC requirements and begin the trial period,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-295: “There’s no reason to delay granting conditional approvals.”

The FCC revised its list of licenses that will be available in the 2.5 GHz auction, taking 19 off the list Friday (see 2203220066). A March notice “did not account for all canceled, terminated, or expired licenses that were granted waivers for late-filed renewals,” said a notice from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics. “The analysis that resulted in the March 21 inventory incorrectly reduced the geographic service area of certain active licenses because it assumed that those active licenses had their geographic service areas reduced by the canceled, expired, or terminated licenses,” the FCC said: “Upon further analysis, Commission staff found 19 instances where county/channel block combinations that had been listed in the March 21 inventory in fact had no unassigned spectrum.” The licenses are in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee and Vermont and are listed in a footnote of the notice. The FCC will offer some 8,000 licenses in the auction, which starts July 29.

T-Mobile will host its Q1 earnings call April 27 at 8 a.m. EDT, said the carrier Thursday. This is a change for T-Mobile, which customarily released quarterly results and held the call after the markets closed. The AT&T and Verizon Q1 calls are set for April 21 and 22, respectively, both also before the markets open.

Wireless mic maker Sennheiser completed its rounds of FCC commissioners’ offices, meeting with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on the vacant channel issue (see 2204120061). The FCC is expected to deny a petition for reconsideration by the company of a December 2020 order closing the agency’s 2015 vacant channel NPRM (see 2204060068). “Sennheiser has repeatedly demonstrated that this spectrum that is essential for wireless microphones is in short supply and at risk of disappearing entirely,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 12-268.

Third-party speed test app developers can immediately start submitting their apps to the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology for review and approval, OET and the FCC Broadband Data Task Force said in a Thursday docket 22-152 notice. OET said it will try to complete its review of proposals received by June 9, "in advance of the FCC’s publication of the initial versions of the broadband availability maps required under the Broadband DATA Act.” The timetable will allow “third-party apps, in addition to the FCC Speed Test app, to be made available to consumers and other entities to begin submitting mobile challenge and crowdsource data … once the mobile broadband availability maps are published,” the notice said.

CTIA raised concerns about an FCC proposal that would require carriers to report and measure the performance of wireless emergency alerts, in a Further NPRM set for a commissioner vote next week (see 2203310065). A CTIA representative spoke with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 15-91. “According to the Commission’s 2021 Nationwide WEA Test Report, the test WEA was received by the overwhelming majority of respondents with a compatible device that opted into the test -- approximately nine out of ten -- within two minutes of transmission,” CTIA said: Proposals to require carriers to track delivery or display of WEAs “do not appear to be compatible with the foundational cell-broadcast technology used to meet the public safety mission of WEA and may undermine the voluntary nature of the WEA program as directed by Congress.”

Market share of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E will reach 58% this year, passing Wi-Fi 5, said TrendForce Wednesday. Wi-Fi 6E, which supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands and can also operate in the 6 GHz band, is designed to reduce network congestion and interference through more numerous, wider and non-overlapping channels, said the research firm. More automotive, IoT and AR/VR tech is expected to enter the consumer market this year, creating additional demand for high-quality Wi-Fi, while smart home and smart lighting are among the fastest growing consumer segments, it said. Shipments of Wi-Fi-based smart home gear are forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18% from 2021 to 2026, driving applications including AR/VR, cloud gaming, 4K videoconferencing and 8K streaming media, it said. By 2025, the share of smartphones supporting Wi-Fi 6 and 6E is estimated to exceed 80%.

The Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute (AVSI) filed at the FCC the third and final volume of test results on potential interference caused by use of the C-band to radio altimeters, in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-122. The earlier volumes were filed in December. The report offers “additional manufacturer-provided test results,” AVSI said: The data is “considered Background Proprietary Information of the individual contributors. The manufacturers have preserved the anonymized labeling used in Volume I and II of this report to allow comparison between AVSI and manufacturer test results.” Verizon is already deploying 5G in the band, though with voluntary limits around some airports (see 2201180065).

NCTA representatives urged the FCC to wrap up a 2020 Further NPRM on proposed changes to rules for the 6 GHz band (see 2204080042), increasing the power limit for low-power indoor (LPI) access points (APs), in a virtual meeting with staff from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology and Office of the General Counsel. “The Commission can quickly deliver expanded benefits to consumers because many 6 GHz LPI APs that are already being deployed will be tunable to that higher power level,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295: “A power limit of 8 dBm/MHz [power spectral density] for LPI APs will significantly increase the value and benefits of 6 GHz Wi-Fi for U.S. consumers and businesses without increasing the risk of harmful interference to incumbent users in the band.”

Mid-band fixed wireless access from T-Mobile and Verizon “has emerged as perhaps the key controversy in broadband,” MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told investors Tuesday. “Both companies have targeted broad rollouts and have set ambitious targets, and they have largely dismissed concerns about capacity constraints,” but neither offers much detail, he said. For T-Mobile, Comlinkdata’s data shows deployment skews “towards rural areas” with the “preponderance of subscribers … coming from areas where there is at least one robust competitive wired alternative,” he said. T-Mobile is “clearly being quite deliberate in where they accept new subscribers,” he said. “It is much harder to draw real insight from the Verizon FWA numbers, inasmuch as they apply only to Verizon’s relatively limited deployment of their [millimeter-wave] offering,” Moffett said: “Their subscribers necessarily skew towards dense areas, as the propagation of mmWave demands.”