Some 62,000 attended the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, where a major theme was the fast growth of 5G, John Strand of Strand Consult blogged Monday. Top officials at GSMA didn’t mention “the declining shareholder value of mobile operators,” he said: “Since 1998, the only net value add from has been premium SMS to pay for ring tones, logos, Java games, and TV polls. While mobile data traffic may be up 40% last year, this does not translate into greater revenue for mobile operators. … GSMA's members may talk a big game about the future; it has failed to monetize it.” Strand said “the elephant in the room” was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “While there’s a consensus that Russia’s actions are wrong, few realized just how brutal the invasion could be,” he said. “2022 is likely the last MWC that GSMA and its members can pretend to remain neutral geopolitically. Governments, consumers, and shareholders are forcing companies to choose sides.” MWC was held Feb. 28-March 3.

Verizon said Monday it has reached agreements for early clearance of the C band, allowing it to deploy 5G Ultra Wideband this year in “at least 30 additional major markets” including Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver and Washington, D.C. “The guts of the network must manage the additional capacity, support the additional speeds, and support the additional intelligence and programmability needed for customers to take advantage of the advanced performance of 5G,” said Kyle Malady, Verizon president-global network and technology: “In my career with Verizon, I have never experienced a network deployment move so quickly.” Verizon will pay SES up to $170 million to accelerate the clearing of C-band spectrum, SES said Monday. The agreement “will see SES expand Verizon’s access to the 3700-3800 MHz block in certain markets beyond the 46 Partial Economic Areas cleared in Phase I and earlier than the Phase II accelerated relocation deadline,” the company said. SES will install filters and other equipment at about 500 sites this year, “comparable to the activities executed during Phase I,” and receive an extra payment from Verizon “subject to delivering the clearing on a timeline agreed to by the parties.” Verizon is the first national carrier to rapidly deploy in the C-band, an important part of its 5G strategy (see 2201310061).

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson Friday named staff representatives to participate on each other’s advisory committees. The Wireless Bureau’s Jessica Quinley will participate as an observer on NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, said a news release: Doug Brake, an NTIA spectrum policy specialist, will participate in the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council, and Senior Adviser Timothy May in the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council. “This is a critical component of the FCC and NTIA’s Spectrum Coordination Initiative under which they are taking actions to strengthen the processes for decision-making and information sharing and to work cooperatively to resolve spectrum policy issues,” the agencies said.

NAB asked the FCC to set aside 55 MHz in the 6 GHz band for licensed use, including electronic newsgathering, in a filing posted Friday in docket 17-183. NAB said it previously asked for 80 MHz but is dialing down that request. “Just 55 MHz would have the benefit of harmonizing the use of the band internationally” and provide two 25 MHz channels for electronic newsgathering, plus a 5 MHz guard band. The set aside would be at the top of the band -- 7070-7125 MHz. “Journalism, including live coverage of events as they unfold, has never been more important,” broadcasters said: “Access to spectrum is an indispensable component of broadcasters’ ability to provide high-quality and real-time coverage of history as it unfolds.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld an FCC order allowing unlicensed use of the band but asked the FCC for further explanation on a narrow issue raised by NAB (see 2112280047).

U.S. wireless carriers are performing well during a period of global turmoil and inflation, but tougher times loom, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett said in a Thursday research note. “U.S. wireless carriers are entirely domestic, with no exposure to European energy shocks or Eurozone recession risks,” he said. “They have no Eurozone earnings and no export exposure to an excessively strong dollar. If there is a U.S. recession, their services are, by and large, indispensable.” But they also face challenges, especially keeping up subscriber growth, he said. Recent growth is “unsustainable” and “far in excess of population growth, and is seemingly poised for a fall,” he said. “A drop in subscriber growth would probably only increase the pressure on carriers to compete on the basis of price and promotions, making matters worse.” Moffett sees T-Mobile as the major player best positioned to “weather” the storm ahead. “The company is growing share of gross additions and is poised to see declines in churn rate,” he said. “With the industry’s best pricing and the industry’s best network, and with still many growth opportunities ahead (not least in rural America), we believe T-Mobile’s share gains are poised to accelerate,” he said.

Smith Bagley asked the FCC for a three-month extension of its Lifeline waivers, set to expire March 31, “as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to pose challenges for both consumers and providers.” The company and its service area “continue to face significant obstacles associated with being located on remote Tribal lands,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 11-42: The Tribal areas the company serves in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah “are sparsely populated with limited access to transportation, water, electricity, and Internet access. … These challenges make it extremely difficult to make timely contact with subscribers to request that necessary documents for reverification and recertification be brought to” a company store.

Qualcomm urged the FCC to finish a proceeding on the use of the 5030-5091 MHz band by drones, in a call with staff from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology. “Qualcomm expects the vast majority of [unmanned aircraft vehicle] missions will be carried out largely autonomously, taking advantage of UAV-to-UAV direct communications links and other on-board sensors once a pre-mission flight plan is approved and securely communicated to the unmanned aircraft,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket RM-11798: “Qualcomm explained that it is important that a dedicated and protected spectrum band, such as the 5030-5091 MHz band, be used to support these important … communications functions, instead of unlicensed spectrum that is subject to high levels of unwanted and uncontrollable noise, particularly in metropolitan areas where most drones are expected to be operating.” Qualcomm urged the FCC to allocate 20 MHz “for a direct UAV to UAV communications mode, which drones will use to communicate directly with one another to coordinate safe and efficient flights and also for drones to broadcast Remote ID information in compliance with FAA regulations," with two 20.5 MHz blocks “licensed exclusively to support network communications through which drones will communicate via cellular networks for Control and Non-Payload Communications.”

T-Mobile is “absolutely on track” to shutter its 3G network starting March 31, Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik said at a Deutsche Bank investment conference Tuesday. Osvaldik said AT&T and Verizon won’t be able to catch up soon with T-Mobile’s 5G deployment. “We're the only ones with a 5G stand-alone core, and you really need a 5G stand-alone core to enable a lot of these use cases that you're hearing about -- network slicing, creating private networks, things like that,” he said: That's why business customers “are tremendously excited to work with us because they know we have the network capabilities before you even talk about the actual coverage differentiation that we have on the mid-band layer and the low-band layer of the network,” he said. 5G won’t be built based on millimeter wave spectrum or small cells, he said: “That's not a way you can generate ubiquitous coverage. The way we approached it is a macro-tower-focused network.” T-Mobile had to deploy 5G on three times as many towers to get from 100 million covered POPs to 200 million, he said. That's what other carriers “have ahead of them to get from 100 million to 200 million, and it's going to take them a while to get to 200 million,” he said.

The FCC asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to extend abeyance on a lawsuit by the League of California Cities challenging the FCC’s June 2020 wireless infrastructure declaratory ruling (see 2111160048). “Further abeyance will provide an opportunity for a fully-constituted Commission to consider how to proceed in this case,” the commission wrote Tuesday in case 20-71765. The FCC noted a full Senate vote to confirm Gigi Sohn as commissioner hasn’t been scheduled.

Comments are due April 18, replies May 16, on an NPRM seeking comment on whether to adopt four new or updated standards for equipment authorization and certification of the telecommunication certification bodies that review new RF devices, said a notice for Thursday's Federal Register. Commissioners approved the NPRM 4-0 before their January meeting (see 2201260016).