The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit assigned 10 minutes to each side in oral argument Jan. 25 at 9:30 a.m. about Environmental Health Trust, Consumers for Safe Cell Phones and Children’s Health Defense seeking to force the FCC to reopen examination of RF exposure rules (see 2011200032). Friday's order (in Pacer) denied amicus curiae Natural Resources Defense Council’s motion to participate in the argument before Judges Karen Henderson, Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins.

The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Radio Frequencies asked the FCC to not allow aeronautical use of the 4.9 GHz band. “An aeronautical service transmitting down to Earth is the worst-case scenario in regard to potential interference problems for Radio Astronomy Service observatories,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 07-100. Observations in the band are “extremely useful in studying the brightness distributions of objects such as ionized hydrogen clouds surrounding young stars; remnants of supernovae, which mark the cataclysmic end of stars; and ejecta traveling at nearly the speed of light from black holes in the nuclei of galaxies,” the committee said. Grandfather in existing public safety licensees, asked the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services: “Public safety use of the 4.9 GHz band is widespread and crucial in New York state.”

The FCC Wireless Bureau accepted for filing 29 additional tribal applications for licenses to use the 2.5 GHz band, it said Thursday. The tribal window to apply for licenses closed Sept. 2 with more than 400 applications (see 2009030012).

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. expects 2021 global smartphone shipments to increase 10% year on year and 5G handsets to take 35% market share this year, up from 18% in 2020, said CEO C.C. Wei on a Q4 earnings call Thursday. TSMC is a major components supplier to the iPhone 12. The “silicon content” of 5G smartphones will continue to increase compared with their 4G counterparts, said Wei. “We continue to expect faster penetration of 5G smartphones” compared with 4G penetration rates historically, as 5G handsets “benefit from the significant performance” upgrade to drive more artificial intelligence applications and “more cloud services,” he said. TSMC views 5G as a “multiyear megatrend that will enable a world where digital computation is increasingly ubiquitous.” That’s expected, he said, to “fuel the growth” long-term of all four of TSMC’s business “platforms” -- smartphones, high-performance computing (HPC), automotive and IoT. “As we enter the 5G era, a smarter and more intelligent world will require massive increases in computation power and greater need for energy-efficient computing, and therefore, require leading-edge technologies.” TSMC is looking to HPC as an “increasingly important driver” of the company’s “incremental revenue growth,” he said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau rejected a 2019 Verizon petition charging that siting fees in Clark County, Nevada’s small-cell ordinance are unlawful (see 1908270035). CTIA supported Verizon (see 2010150020). The bureau dismissed the petition “without prejudice and, given continued disagreement in the record, we remind the parties that certain of these issues were resolved by the 2018 Small Cell Declaratory Ruling,” said an order Thursday in docket 19-230. Verizon didn't comment.

The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction procedures notice suggests a single-round, sealed-bid auction design would be quicker to implement than the more traditional simultaneous multiple round (SMR) format. The notice seeks comment on both (see 2101130067). The single round “would remain open long enough to give bidders ample time to submit, review and potentially resubmit, and confirm their bids,” said the docket 20-429 notice posted in Thursday's Daily Digest: “Bids submitted during the round would need to meet the activity rule. After the round closes, the submitted bids would be processed by the bidding system to determine the winning bids.” The number of licenses to be auctioned is “very large,” with about 8,300 up for sale, the FCC says: “An SMR auction could last for months, which would require participating bidders to monitor the auction consistently, a resource commitment that is demanding for all bidders, but particularly for smaller entities, many of which we expect will compete.” A traditional auction also “entails a longer prohibited communications quiet period,” the notice said. A single-round auction could “help overcome some of the inherent advantages of incumbent rights holders in the band and increase overall competition in the auction.”

TCL confirmed U.S. pricing for its TCL20 5G smartphone, which will sell in the U.S. for under $300. Product Marketing Manager Josefina Fuster said at a virtual CES event that the company’s goal is to deliver “affordable 5G without compromising.” The company will launch its first 5G tablet and its first foldable phone this year, Fuster said Wednesday. TCL has no current plans to make its TVs compatible for ATSC 3.0 (see 2101130070).

FCC staff retroactively extended 2016-18 deadlines for construction, drive testing and reporting requirements tied to final disbursements of Mobility Fund Phase I or Tribal Mobility Fund Phase I support for licenses held by Appalachian Wireless, UScellular, GCI and Union Telephone. “While today’s petitioners were not free from certain predictable causes of delay, each petitioner faced other, unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances beyond its control that prevented the timely completion of its performance requirements,” said Wednesday's Wireline and Wireless bureaus and Office of Economics and Analytics order.

Qualcomm agreed to buy CPU supplier Nuvia for $1.4 billion, said the chipmaker Wednesday. Qualcomm expects to embed Nuvia CPUs across its “broad portfolio,” including Snapdragon processors for smartphones. “5G, the convergence of computing and mobile architectures, and the expansion of mobile technologies into other industries are significant opportunities for Qualcomm,” said President Cristiano Amon, who succeeds Steve Mollenkopf as CEO June 30. The combined companies are “very well positioned to redefine computing and enable our ecosystem of partners to drive innovation and deliver a new class of products and experiences for the 5G era,” Amon said.

Qualcomm Technologies saw a 5G “acceleration across the board” in 2020, said Alejandro Holcman, senior vice president-engineering, in a prerecorded CES 2021 workshop streamed Wednesday. Qualcomm estimates that more than 100 network operators worldwide have “commercially deployed” 5G, he said. Hundreds of smartphone OEMs introduced 5G products, and shipments exceeded 200 million devices, he said. Though the pandemic made 2020 a “very challenging year, things are happening,” and there’s “no sign of a slowdown” in 5G, he said. The rollout is “still in the early stages,” said Holcman, and he thinks the 5G story of 2021 will be “expansion of coverage.” Consumers who buy 5G smartphones aren’t happy when they can’t find a 5G signal, he said. “Some of these things take time,” as they did during earlier wireless transitions, he said. Some higher 5G bands have “lower propagation” than the existing 4G service, he said. Building coverage “requires additional sites, and that takes time -- it’s more complex, you need permits,” he said. “But in 2021, I’m pretty hopeful that everybody’s going to be able to experience the 5G signal that they should get.”