Aerospace representatives have concerns about the draft order on shared use of the 3.1-3.55 GHz band, set for a vote March 17 (see 2102240063), they told an aide to acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Industry needs access to nonfederal experimental licensees in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band after a proposed auction, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 19-348. “A solution put in place before the auction commences is critical to ensure that all parties bidding will have full information regarding the coordination framework,” said the Aerospace Industries Association, Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and others: Make clear “good-faith coordination requires parties using the spectrum to accommodate the other party when planning operations so as to minimize impacts on the other party while taking into account the parties’ relative priority of spectrum access.”

Network “slicing” will be a “crucial enabler” of new business models and a “key concept to empower the potential of 5G,” reported ABI Research Tuesday. Communications service providers can use network slicing to offer “varied service levels of network availability, throughput, latency, level of security, and several other performance indicators,” it said. “This lays the groundwork for a more controllable and flexible connection environment without modifying the underlying infrastructure's properties that provide the raw network capabilities.” It projects 5G network slicing will generate $20 billion in global revenue by 2024. 5G slicing “enables vertical partners to bring to market a wider range of business services based on network slices that are customized in line with required service-level agreements and network key performance indications,” said analyst Don Alusha.

China Telecom Americas asked the FCC for an administrative hearing on the decision to revoke its Communications Act Section 214 authorizations, in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-109. “The process that the Commission proposes to follow in this case ignores the Commission’s own rules and precedents, and deprives CTA of a property interest in its authorizations without the due process of law required by the Constitution,” the carrier said. “Until now, the Commission has consistently interpreted its own rules as requiring that issues in revocation proceedings be designated for hearing, and the Order neither acknowledged that precedent nor offered any rationale for departing from it.”

Broadcom, Cisco, Facebook, Intel and Qualcomm proposed an FCC “compromise” for very-low-power portable operations throughout the 6 GHz band. They proposed that devices must meet an out-of-band emissions level of -37 dBm/MHz, measured by root mean square at 5925 MHz and prioritize operations in channels above 6105 MHz, said their filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-183.

Public safety agencies using FirstNet grew from 9,000 in FY 2019 to 13,000 in FY 2020, and connections doubled to 1.5 million, it reported to Congress. The network covered 54% of Americans in rural areas, said the report, posted Monday. The authority said it invested $200 million in the network, beyond the work of AT&T.

Aviat, Comsearch, Ericsson and Nokia told the FCC Monday there's “high demand” for smaller, lighter antennas for wireless backhaul in the 70/80 GHz band. The FCC sought comment last year (see 2008050058). The antennas “have been available in Europe and other geographies for nearly a decade,” they said. Smaller antennas with lower minimum gain won't be more sensitive to potential interference caused by emissions from endpoints in motion compared with fixed service antennas currently on the market, nor will a rule change allowing lower minimum gain result in more interference into proposed endpoints in motion services, they said. The filing hadn’t been posted by the agency.

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved waivers sought by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians for tribal licenses to use the 2.5 GHz band. The three parcels of land are held in trust by the tribe and don’t qualify under the tribal window for a license, absent a waiver, the bureau said Monday. The tribe demonstrated the parcels are “either held for the specific benefit of the Tribe or are directly owned by the Tribe,” the bureau said: “The Tribe’s authority over the lands is adequately demonstrated by the fact that the Santa Ynez have built Tribal housing and other Tribal facilities in these areas.”

T-Mobile asked the FCC to end the administrative apparatus run by the 800 MHz transition administrator and declare the 800 MHz rebanding complete. Over 99.99% of the more than 2,000 frequency reconfiguration agreements “have been fully implemented and are closed,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 02-55: “The only exceptions are two signed but still open FRAs.” One is a “no cost” agreement that will be needed if the FCC decides the commercial licensee holds valid licenses that will require a “paper retune.” The second is with “a public safety licensee who just completed its reconfiguration but has not yet fully completed the administrative aspects of its rebanding project,” T-Mobile said. Commissioners approved a rebanding order in 2004.

Boingo Wireless agreed to be sold in a $854 million deal to an affiliate of digital infrastructure investment firm Digital Colony Management for $14 per share in cash, said the Wi-Fi carrier Monday. Boingo canceled its financial earnings call Monday. The stock closed 25.1% higher at $14.26.

T-Mobile objected to the FCC’s data collection order, which required the nine largest Lifeline providers to submit five years of network cost data for the Wireline Bureau's Lifeline market report. The order's questionnaire "violates the Paperwork Reduction Act, exceeds the Bureau’s delegated authority, and has serious design deficiencies,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-437: “The exclusion of non-mobile Lifeline providers AT&T and Verizon, limits the usefulness of any data obtained.”