The Wireless Infrastructure Association said Thursday it joined the National Spectrum Consortium, with the goal of increasing “industry collaboration" on R&D of 5G and "5G-based technologies.” One focus will be telecom workforce development, WIA said.

The FCC's limiting part of the 5.9 GHz band to just cellular vehicle-to-everything use is raising “unanticipated intellectual property” issues, said representatives of Continental Automotive Systems in a call with an aide to FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Parties obligated to comply with FCC regulations must be able to do so legally in compliance with the U.S. Patent Laws,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 19-138. Some C-V2X standard patent holders “refuse to license automotive industry participants such as Continental, or only will do so on unreasonable and discriminatory terms,” the company said.

The FCC takes the right approach in a draft Further NPRM on the 4.9 GHz band (see 2109090068) and should make it available more broadly than just to public safety and the critical information industry, the Wireless ISP Association said in a filing Thursday to be posted in docket 07-100. The band should be “available to any user that desires access to the band and can meet the Commission’s interference protection and device certification requirements,” WISPA said.

T-Mobile supports a thorough exam of the 12 GHz band and selling licenses in an auction “if the Commission determines, after a careful evaluation of the technical issues presented in the record, that the spectrum should be made available for terrestrial mobile services,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-443. T-Mobile slammed what it says is Dish Network’s approach -- that the FCC “should instead simply gift those rights to existing incumbents.” Dish argues that in wireless communications service, the FCC allowed terrestrial use of that band absent an auction, T-Mobile said. In WCS, “incumbents were already permitted to provide terrestrial mobile services, and licensees acquired those rights at auction,” the filing said: “In this case, incumbent licensees would obtain entirely new rights to provide terrestrial mobile services.” A Dish spokesperson declined comment, except to point to an August filing.

Worldwide 5G subscribers hit 429 million in Q2, based on data from Omdia, 5G Americas said Wednesday. That’s up 124 million in the first half of the year, the group said: “5G remains on pace to triple the number of connections in 2020 and is forecast to reach 692 million globally by the end of the calendar year.” North America had 44.6 million by the end of Q2, up 17.9 million for the year.

Nokia representatives spoke with staff, at FCC request, to answer technical questions on gear set to be deployed in the C-band, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-122. “Commercial base stations in C-band are meant to provide wideband coverage for macrocells” and “operate close to the Commission regulatory power limits,” Nokia said: It fielded questions on power levels, out-of-band emissions and antennas, speaking with staff from the Wireless and International bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology.

The FCC Wireless Bureau encouraged tribal applicants for 2.5 GHz licenses to work together to resolve issues when two or more apply for the same market. “Most of the Rural Tribal Priority Window applications that remain pending before the Bureau are mutually exclusive with other applications also filed in the window,” the bureau said Wednesday: “Due to statutory requirements, mutually exclusive applications cannot be processed under the Commission’s normal application review process unless the overlap is eliminated.” Applicants can help by taking “voluntary steps to remedy any overlaps,” the bureau said. It announced 20 more applications were accepted for filing from Alaskan Native communities after “potential mutual exclusivity issues were addressed through voluntary steps.”

The FCC will publish a public notice in Wednesday’s Federal Register designating innovation zones for experimental licenses in Raleigh and Boston, and expanding New York City's zone. Commissioners OK’d the notice 4-0 last month (see 2108050056).

Competitive Carriers Association member executives said they're interested in emergency broadband and other subsidies being made available by the federal government to build out their networks, warning that new market entrants may not have viable plans. Nsight is working with about 500 governments in its service territories on broadband grants, CEO Mark Naze said during a panel Tuesday. Rural broadband “is not a cookie cutter, it’s not a one size fits all,” said Eric Woody, Union Wireless chief technical and operations officer: “It’s not even a one size fits most. … Wireless is key to getting the last mile and sometimes that middle mile done.” There “are a lot of new parties coming to the table to participate in this industry,” said Maureen Moore, GCI chief customer experience officer. “There’s a tremendous focus on building and maybe not enough on operating,” she said: “What happens once you fund something and it’s built, then how do you maintain it going forward?” Woody agreed, saying his company is in the Rocky Mountains where “things break and you have to fix them.” For too many years, the focus was “we need to reduce funding … and now look at our infrastructure,” Woody said. Too much focus at the federal level is on fiber, said Cellular One CEO Jonathan Foxman: “The amount that looks like it’s heading to wireless to us seems really insufficient.” Naze agrees with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr that big tech should have to pay into USF (see 2109150055). “It was very encouraging to see" Carr "say last week that he supported that as a solution to the problem,” Naze said. The executives said they're deploying spectrum as they move to 5G but have concerns about FCC auctions. Nsight is adding spectrum to about 25% of its cellsites this year, Naze said: “For us to continue … we need to have more affordable spectrum.” The large license sizes sold by the FCC don’t work “west of the Mississippi” because “they’re too big,” Woody said: “They don’t [match] the existing licenses that we have today. It’s screwed up.” The execs said their companies weathered this pandemic. At the peak, his company had more than $800,000 past due on its books, from 2,700 customers, Foxman said. “I was a little freaked out -- are we going to collect any of that?” The company had to write off only about $10,000, he said. Union offered Wi-Fi outside schools and in less affluent areas, so kids could go to school remotely, Woody said. Union never closed stores and continued to do in-premise installations, he said. The discussion was streamed from CCA’s annual show in Phoenix.

Viaero Wireless picked Ericsson to upgrade its existing LTE gear to 5G, the vendor said Monday.