Parts of the FCC October 5G Fund order (see 2010270034) were cleared by OMB and take effect Thursday, says that day's Federal Register.

Comments are due May 20, replies and oppositions June 4, in docket 21-172 on a petition seeking a declaratory ruling that would allow foreign ownership of Consolidated Communications to rise above the 25% benchmark in the Communications Act. Searchlight, a “global private equity investment company,” is seeking to buy “up to approximately 62.4%” of Consolidated’s equity for $425 million. Consolidated is the parent of three companies with FCC wireless licenses, said a notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau warned amateur radio service and personal radio service licensees Tuesday that they can't use their devices “to commit or facilitate criminal acts.”

Representatives of CTIA, USTelecom and member companies urged FCC action on a June petition seeking regulatory relief on pro forma filings (see 2006050039), in a call with Wireless Bureau staff. Association reps “discussed the unanimous support in the record for the Petition’s proposed reforms, which will greatly benefit a diverse range of filers, Commission staff, and the public by providing clarity and helping alleviate burdens associated with pro forma filings,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-186. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and UScellular participated.

Fining major carriers for not meeting a Z-axis deadline doesn’t address the larger problem faced by wireless callers to 911, said Precision Broadband CEO Charles Simon in a call with an aide to acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Major carriers sought more time to meet an April 3 deadline for vertical location on emergency calls. The FCC instead said the Enforcement Bureau will investigate whether providers are in compliance (see 2104020056). “Many enforcement actions result in multi-million dollar fines that make headlines but don’t remedy the problem,” said Tuesday's posting in docket 07-114.

Supply chain challenges have big implications for smartphones and telecom, said Michael Orlando, acting director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), during an Intelligence and National Security Alliance webinar Tuesday. A recent White House summit focused on supply chain issues (see 2104130005). A smartphone “consists of numerous components -- battery, antenna, integrated circuit, the screen,” Orlando noted. “Those components are made from raw materials” that “have to be extracted from around the world and then shipped to various factories to build those components,” he said. The components are then shipped to another factory to be assembled, he said. The supply chain has many vulnerabilities, Orlando said: “An adversary can target any point of that long, complicated process. They could cut off access to components, steal technology or introduce infected components.” The semiconductor supply chain has risen to the “top of the policy agenda” in Washington, said Semiconductor Industry Association CEO John Neuffer. Chips are “driving the technologies of the future,” including 5G and AI, he said. The best way to “provide security is through technical leadership,” and the U.S. is falling behind, said Tower Semiconductor CEO Russell Ellwanger. Within weeks of the pandemic's start, Dell got 90% of its factory capacity back, said Cameron Chehreh, chief technology officer of the federal business. “That was a direct result of the diversification in the supply chain -- prescreening suppliers” and “ensuring that we had great resiliency,” he said. That's critical as more people live online and need new computers, he said.

T-Mobile has “a lasting advantage” over AT&T and Verizon on spectrum for 5G, Neville Ray, T-Mobile president-technology, blogged Monday. In the second phase of 5G, “everyone in the industry is playing the same game -- building out optimal mid-band spectrum to deliver the perfect combo of speeds and coverage,” Ray said: Verizon will have access to only 60 MHz of C-band spectrum and AT&T 40 MHz by year-end, with the rest available in late 2023.

Verizon is starting to install C-band radio access network equipment from Ericsson and Samsung. Verizon was the top bidder in the auction, gaining an average of 161 MHz nationwide. “Although the initial spectrum won’t be cleared until the end of this year, Verizon and its vendor partners have already begun the work to ensure the super-fast 5G Ultra Wideband service using C-band is deployed to 100 million customers by March 2022,” the provider said Monday.

Verizon and Tracfone countered arguments by the American Antitrust Institute (see 2104050029) on their proposed deal, in a filing posted Monday in FCC docket 21-112. “AAI is wrong on the competition analysis framework that applies to [mobile virtual network operators] and the wireless marketplace,” the companies said: “Despite a longstanding, consistent and bipartisan view that MVNO subscribers should be attributed to their host [carriers] when calculating wireless market shares, AAI now claims that such an approach is ‘flawed and misleading’ and ‘contrary to basic economics.’” The companies said AAI is wrong “to posit a separate prepaid wireless product market, but in any event the Verizon/TracFone combination will fuel more competition for prepaid customers.”

Bernstein’s Peter Supino questioned Dish Network complaints that T-Mobile closing its CDMA network hurts competition (see 2104140036). “The incremental cost to migrate Dish's customers to a more advanced network is not high,” he told investors Monday. Prepaid churn is high, “so a significant amount of the base will have an opportunity to update their phones,” he said: “Customer phones need to be upgraded to use Dish's standalone 5G network anyway.” But “millions of Boost customers, the majority of whom are underserved and face income challenges, are at risk of being impacted,” said a Dish spokesperson. “This issue is not just about devices, which are in limited supply due to global chip shortages and LG's exit from the market, or cost. As T-Mobile well knows, technology migrations take time.”