AT&T and Nokia met with staff from across the FCC on a study Nokia did of 5G C-band base station equipment near Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. Details were redacted in Friday's filing in docket 18-122. AT&T and Verizon proposed temporary voluntary power limits and antenna restrictions on C-band deployments near airports as they seek to turn the band on in early 2022 (see 2111240062).

The Land Mobile Communications Council asked the FCC Friday to clarify that it doesn’t plan to start accepting T-band applications, beyond those from incumbent licensees, after a suspension public notice (see 2106210025) expires Dec. 19. LMCC also asked the FCC to renew the notice through June 30. A requirement to identify TV stations that applicants must protect “has presented significant obstacles to the orderly resumption of T-Band application and licensing processes contemplated in the Suspension Modification PN,” the council said it emailed two agency staffers, noting some are “ghost” stations that no longer exist. Some incumbents haven't filed applications because of the notice, the group said: The notice “has required others to modify their system parameters to less than optimal configurations that they plan to adjust when and if the protected television station list is corrected.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau OK'd a waiver for Cross Telephone, making the company eligible for tribal land bidding credits for licenses it bought in the citizens broadband radio service auction for four licenses covering the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. “Based on the facts of this case and evidence that this specific Tribal land is underserved, we find that waiver relief is warranted,” said a Thursday order. The bureau noted the Osage Nation supported the request.

Rakuten representatives argued for its open radio access network technology, in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-32. U.S. wireless carriers can deploy a cloud-native network running on the Rakuten platform "at lower cost, higher security, and more quickly than traditional wireless appliances in order to close the digital divide in rural areas,” the filing said. Former NTIA Administrator David Redl, now at Salt Point Strategies, was at the meeting for Rakuten.

Millimeter-wave technology for 5G is “redefining mobile experiences,” by enabling users “to access the full potential of 5G by utilizing untapped frequency bands above 24 GHz,” blogged Philippe Poggianti, vice president-business development at the Qualcomm Communications SARL R&D center in France. “This abundant spectrum can deliver the fastest available speeds, extreme capacity and low latency,” said Poggianti Thursday. Qualcomm thinks 5G mmWave is a “game changer” for businesses and consumers, though it’s best suited for “prosumers” for shooting, editing and uploading “hi-res 8K videos” to the cloud “in no time at all,” he said. “Once the work day is over, users can download feature films in seconds, engage in high-quality video chats in crowded spaces, and enjoy high-speed elite gaming with low-latency and desktop-level framerates.” Poggianti thinks mmWave is “the missing piece of the 5G puzzle and a complementary building block of a high-performance 5G system,” he said: “It’s essential for users -- and there’s also significant monetization potential and return on investment for operators.”

Representatives of the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition spoke with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington on use of the 12 GHz band for 5G. “The Coalition has drawn a diverse group of supporters that have coalesced around the evidence showing the feasibility of coexistence” there, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-443: “The technical, engineering and economic studies submitted into the record were intended to assist the Commission staff in evaluating the feasibility for coexistence in this band and address other questions raised by the Commission in the 12 GHz NPRM and by third-party commenters.” Representatives of Incompas, Dish Network, Airspan, the Rural Wireless Association, Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute at New America and RS Access were among those on the calls.

T-Mobile said Wednesday it's working with the 5G Open Innovation Lab at the University of Washington to allow hardware startups to develop, test and deploy new devices and services using T-Mobile 5G. “Lack of 5G access and connectivity is a bottleneck for many innovators,” the carrier said: The lab “allows entrepreneurs, researchers, and student teams to build, innovate, and integrate additional capabilities into their companies and products using next-generation connectivity.” T-Mobile said use cases may include biotech/medical devices, remote sensors, edge computing and “anything requiring low latency and high capacity where vast volumes of data must move almost instantly.”

Qorvo thinks 5G is still “in the very early innings,” CEO Bob Bruggeworth told a virtual Barclays investor conference Wednesday. “As we start to see the second- and third-generation devices being rolled out in 5G, they continue to add more bands,” and “complexity” in the antenna area “goes up,” he said. The addition of “more complex Wi-Fi” is also more prevalent in new generations of 5G devices, he said. “We've talked a lot about Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E. We've also started to expand in the Wi-Fi 7. So we expect those trends to continue.” Increased complexity is reminiscent of the “same discussions” for LTE, he said. Ultra-wideband technology is already built into the iOS ecosystem, and “we expect that to now start to proliferate through the Android ecosystem,” he said.

Public safety agencies are likely to have much broader use of smart algorithms and other evolving technologies, many relying on 5G and better networks, said Mehmet Ulema, business professor at Manhattan College. “The current use … is just the tip of the iceberg,” the academic told an IEEE webinar Wednesday. Telecom systems are “massive,” with multiple vendors involved in building networks, said Susan Ronning, principal at Adcomm Engineering: “It’s not just a radio system. It’s not just a network.” Communication inside 911 call centers is “difficult,” with dispatchers talking to callers and first responders while also talking to each other, she said. New technologies are “great,” but operators have complicated jobs and new systems must be maintained, she said. “It’s not necessarily simple when you get too many technologies involved,” she said. “It’s great to have all these technologies, but there has to be a support team” and “it’s very difficult to find people to do this kind of work,” Ronning said. Growing complexity of emergencies in urban settings will require more use of technologies that let first responders collaborate, said Dean Skidmore, IoT+LTE Consulting Group principal consultant. Land-mobile radio, 5G and push-to-talk technologies are deployed and have to work together, he said. Sharing sensitive data across jurisdictions and agencies is difficult in urban areas, he said. Size, weight, ruggedness and battery life are important factors for devices used by first responders, said Narendra Mangra, consultant at GlobeNet. Devices have to be easy to use “to be able to get information very quickly,” he said. Coverage, capacity and service performance of networks are important to public safety, as is interoperability, he said.

Gogo's 5G network construction "is officially under way," with its first 5G site of ground antennas, radios and servers installed, it tweeted Monday. With the partnership of Airspan Networks, everything at the site "is up and running," it said. "Let the testing begin!"