The FCC should “ensure that unserved agricultural areas are included in the final broadband data maps” and “coordinate closely” with the Department of Agriculture and other agencies “to obtain information about coverage in agricultural areas when it is developing the maps,” said a Deere filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-195. Deere representatives met via videoconference with officials from the FCC Broadband Data Task Force, the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and other officials on the importance of maps and broadband funding in rural America. The “Cultivated Land” layer created by the Agriculture Department should be included in federal maps, Deere said.

The NFL told the FCC it didn’t need to use an agency waiver to use citizens broadband radio service spectrum to operate its in-stadium, coach-to-coach communications system during a game in which it lost connection with a spectrum access system manager. In a single incident in Atlanta Nov. 18, a fiber cut to the Lumen network "took the Lumen ISP connection down at that stadium,” the league said: “The Verizon LTE system was automatically switched in and there was never any loss of communication with the SAS.” The NFL said “the level of ISP redundancy implemented in each stadium is sufficient to make it highly improbable that the CBRS system will be operated pursuant to the waiver.” The filing was posted Monday in docket 21-111.

Mavenir representatives said they held a call with FCC staff on a February filing urging the commission to adopt open and interoperable interfaces for radio access networks, disputing claims that agency action isn’t ripe (see 2202090039). “Consider incumbent Radio Access Network (RAN) manufacturer dominance on an individual network and geographical basis, consistent with customer purchasing decisions,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 21-63. If the FCC does so, “Mavenir believes the facts will show that the Commission should require interoperability and the development of open interfaces for RAN equipment,” the filing said.

AT&T is in the market for more spectrum, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches told a Deutsche Bank conference Monday, not elaborating on what bands the company may pursue. “Whenever something comes to the market, we’re going to evaluate it because we think this is a core asset that we will need in order to deliver the quality of services that we aspire to deliver,” he said. AT&T led bidding in the 3.45 GHz auction and was second after Verizon in the C-band auction (see 2201260055). Desroches noted AT&T’s recent uptick in post-paid phone adds, outpacing T-Mobile and Verizon. “For several years, we had been under-investing” in wireless and “hadn’t been investing in keeping our customers,” he said: “That changed in 2020, and we really stepped up our investment to a point where we are matching our competitors and the results have been very clear. We have, during that time, led the industry in share. We are growing both top line and bottom line for our largest business, and we expect that to continue.” Desroches said AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile each has “a really good 5G network and they’re going to continue to get better” as more spectrum comes online. AT&T expects to lose some customers following its ongoing 3G sunset (see 2202240002) but not to take a major hit. “We expect to see some 3G subscribers churning off, and so that’s going to impact us some,” he said. On its fiber build, AT&T isn’t “immune” to supply-chain problems, Desroches said. “We have first priority on supplies,” he said: “We are in great position on access to labor relative to others, and what we’re seeing is while there were issues in the summer of last year, those issues have been largely resolved and we exited 2021 with good momentum, and that continues in 2022.” Desroches also said its fixed-wireless offering is well suited to less-densely populated areas, but in other markets it doesn’t make sense because the operating costs are higher. “Why not just simply go and do it right the first time … build fiber and bet on the long term that the trends are in your favor,” he said.

AT&T will deploy 120 MHz of mid-band spectrum for 5G, covering 200 million people by the end of 2023, said the carrier Friday as it updated analysts. “Enabling faster speeds, increased capacity and lower latency, this valuable mid-band spectrum complements the company’s existing 5G footprint, which covers more than 255 million people in more than 16,000 cities and towns,” the company said. AT&T also plans to double its fiber footprint to 30-plus million locations, adding 3.5 million to 4 million customer locations each year. “Today we are at the dawn of a new age of connectivity, and AT&T is positioned to take advantage of a strong and unique market opportunity that plays into the DNA of our company,” said CEO John Stankey. AT&T's new plan is “to become Verizon (Holding to the adage that you should always be yourself unless you can be Batman … then always be Batman),” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin said in a note to investors: “AT&T’s narrative for the business is remarkably similar to what we think of as Verizon’s, though slightly less well articulated, and the incremental revenue opportunities that they describe seem remarkably similar to Verizon’s.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology is seeking comment on the one part of the agency’s 2020 6 GHz order on which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asked the FCC for further explanation. The court otherwise upheld the order, which opened the band for sharing with Wi-Fi (see 2112280047). “We seek comment on NAB’s arguments in the Commission’s proceeding regarding broadcasters’ experience in the 2.4 GHz band, how that experience relates to the kinds of contention-based protocol operations prescribed for indoor use in the 6 GHz rules, and whether the 2.4 GHz experience warrants reservation of a portion of the 6 GHz band for mobile indoor operations or any other modification to the Commission’s 6 GHz rules,” said a notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. OET stressed “in light of the limited scope of the court’s remand, we do not seek comment on any other aspects of the 6 GHz Report and Order.” Comment dates will be in a Federal Register notice.

Global revenue in the enterprise segment of the wireless local area network market grew 21.8% in Q4 to $2.3 billion and was up 20.4% for full-year 2021 to $7.6 billion, fueled by growing Wi-Fi 6 adoption, reported IDC Wednesday. The consumer segment of the WLAN market declined 10.1% year over year in Q4 and was down 2.5% for the full year, it said. The decline in the “consumer-class” WLAN market was largely due to difficult comparisons with the strong results in 2020, when consumers upgraded their wireless connectivity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said IDC. Compared with full-year 2019 before the pandemic, the consumer market grew 12.6% in 2021, “indicating that the market's fundamentals remain strong,” it said. Wi-Fi 6 products continued to grow in the consumer market, generating 28.2% of the segment's revenue and 13.1% of its unit shipments, it said.

Nearly 50% of T-Mobile’s network traffic is now 5G, compared with 10% a year ago, President-Technology Neville Ray, told a Morgan Stanley conference Wednesday. The company’s 5G offering uses its 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz holdings. “As we go through the balance of this year, the intent is to have pretty much all of that [2.5 GHz] spectrum dedicated to the 5G game,” he said: “We've made great progress on that as we move through '20 and '21.” Ray said more than 40% of postpaid smartphones are 5G capable. About 80% of Sprint cellsites will be decommissioned by the middle of 2022, he said. “There are tens of thousands of sites that we're in a position” to take offline, he said. “We have to upgrade the sites that we’re keeping,” Ray said: “That work is already progressing well. Over the two years, we’ve spent a lot of time really understanding information and data about Sprint customer usage on the network we didn’t have access to previously. Now we’re able to, on a site-by-site basis, measure and quantify customer impact.” T-Mobile said Thursday it’s making its 5G Home Internet service available through 7,000 Metro by T-Mobile stores across the U.S. “This move makes the Un-carrier first to launch a fixed wireless home broadband service for prepaid customers, with no credit check and no annual contracts,” the carrier said. The service costs $50 monthly with "a one-time gateway purchase."

Atrium Hospitality agreed to pay a $35,000 fine and implement a compliance plan after acquiring 25 wireless licenses without FCC approval. In 2018, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company acquired hotels from JQH Entities, which had filed for bankruptcy, as part of a legal settlement, which included 25 private land mobile licenses. In 2019, Atrium filed several wireless license assignment applications, notifying the Wireless Bureau “that it had acquired wireless licenses without the necessary prior Commission approval,” said a Thursday order by the Enforcement Bureau. The Enforcement Bureau said the consent decree agreed to by Atrium ends an FCC investigation.

The FCC adopted the technical requirements for the mobile challenge, verification and crowdsourcing processes for collecting broadband data, as required by the Broadband Data Act. The order was handed down Wednesday by the chiefs of the Wireless Bureau, Office of Economics and Analytics and Office of Engineering and Technology. Small carriers and others sought changes to proposed rules in comments last fall (see 2109290045). The order adopts the “parameters and metrics … that must be collected both for on-the-ground test data to support challenge submissions, rebuttals to cognizable challenges, and responses to verification requests, and for infrastructure information to support challenge rebuttals and responses to verification requests.” Among the policy cuts, the FCC clarifies that “minimum and maximum test length parameters will apply individually to download speed, upload speed, and round-trip latency measurements, and will not include ramp up time.” The agency said it disagreed with arguments by Competitive Carriers Association, Public Knowledge/New America and others that “imposing a maximum test limit places an arbitrary or inferior limitation on testing.” The requirements “balance representative measurement over a stable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection, on the one hand, versus data usage considerations, on the other hand -- especially for consumers who may have limited data plans,” the agency said. The FCC said it understands “concerns about excessive data and burdens on consumers and governments and other third-party challengers to assure that their data aligns to these standards.” But the agency said “such parameters and metrics are necessary to provide the Commission with complete and reliable challenge data that accurately reflect on-the-ground conditions in the challenged area and provide the additional context necessary to efficiently and fully adjudicate challenges and thereby assure that more accurate and reliable coverage maps are made available.” The order said the FCC’s speed test app is “a reliable and efficient method for entities to use in submitting crowdsourced mobile coverage data to the Commission.” On the issue of hexagonal cell sizes for testing, “CTIA, T-Mobile, and AT&T urged the use of smaller resolution 10 hexagons instead of resolution 8, contending that hexagons at resolution 10 better match the 100-meter resolution providers must use when submitting their coverage map,” the order says: The Rural Wireless Association and Vermont regulators “recommend allowing challenges to resolution 6 and 7 hexagons in rural areas, which RWA notes are often difficult to test because of a lack of accessible roads.” The FCC found middle ground, saying resolution 8 “strikes an appropriate balance as the smallest resolution for a cognizable challenge.” The order notes some wanted more clarity on how the FCC will use crowdsourced data. The commission will evaluate data first through an automated process “to identify potential areas that warrant further review and evaluation by Commission staff,” the order said: Problems areas “would be subject to further review and evaluation by Commission staff of available evidence, such as speed test data, infrastructure data, crowdsourced and other third-party data.”