Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson asked where the revenue is going to originate to justify carrier investments in 5G. Moffett told investors Thursday he isn’t hearing any real answers. “Most of the use cases we’ve heard don’t make sense, yet the capital requirements for densifying networks are very real,” he said: “Simply using more data at higher and higher speeds -- we’ve all heard about the dream of downloading a full season of Game of Thrones in seconds before boarding a plane -- has, up to now, been a dry well for wireless revenue generation.” There are problems with most use cases, he said. Driverless cars are commonly cited, “but would anyone really make steering, accelerating and braking, the most mission-critical functions of a driverless car, dependent on ubiquitous network connectivity?” Moffett asked. The factory of the future is likely to be broadly connected, but private networks could cut out carriers, he said: “Won’t low frequency mesh networks like Amazon Sidewalk siphon off lots of the simpler narrowband IoT network use cases?”

Crown Castle received a subpoena from the SEC in September for documents from 2015 through the present, primarily tied to the company's “long-standing capitalization and expense policies for tenant upgrades and installations in its services business,” it said in an SEC filing Wednesday. Crown Castle said it’s cooperating with the investigation. “Services represent about 10 percent of the company’s gross margin, fairly modest in absolute terms, but much larger than at peers,” MoffettNathanson’s Nick Del Deo told investors Thursday. “On its earnings call this morning, the company did not meaningfully expand upon the commentary it provided in its 8-K, and understandably so,” he said: “We can’t say for sure, but several clues suggest that Crown Castle is capitalizing certain services costs to PP&E [property, plant and equipment] and depreciating them over time. This would explain Crown Castle’s substantially higher services gross margin vs. other players that perform similar work.” Crown Castle said site rental revenue grew 6.4 percent in Q3, or $76 million, from the year earlier period. Net income was $272 million vs. $164 million during the same period last year. The company said small-cell deployments are expected to be steady through 2020. “We are experiencing the highest level of tower leasing activity in more than a decade, and we expect to generate a similar level of new leasing activity from towers in 2020 as our customers deploy additional cell sites and spectrum in response to the rapid growth in mobile data traffic,” said CEO Jay Brown. The company “expects a similar level of activity for BOTH small cells and macro in 2020, although the timeframe to get small cell deployments deployed continues to be lengthy (up to 36 months),” wrote Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche: “Checks would suggest this is NOT an issue with demand but rather the permitting process.”

The FCC supports a Los Angeles wireless emergency alerts test, the Public Safety Bureau said in a Wednesday order in docket 15-91. The bureau allowed commercial mobile service providers to participate in the end-to-end WEA test that Los Angeles Emergency Management Department plans for Nov. 16 at 10 a.m. local time. The bureau cited “elevated threat of wildfires” (see 1910110008).

The South Dakota Board of Technical Education approved creating a wireless infrastructure technician certification program at Southeast Technical Institute, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Wednesday. Tower worker training has a Carr areas of advocacy (see 1906240034).

Ericsson officials encouraged the FCC to quickly make more mid-band spectrum available for mobile broadband, including repurposing the 6.425-7.125 GHz band for flexible-use licensed services, said a filing in docket 18-122, posted Wednesday, on a meeting with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai. There's a "need for the U.S. to support studies and possible regulatory action for mid-band spectrum, including band frequencies in the 6 GHz range for mobile use as an agenda item for the World Radio Conference in 2023,” the company said.

CEO Chet Kanojia and others from Starry updated FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on the company’s plans for a “nationwide, next generation, gigabit-capable fixed wireless network.” Starry discussed progress on its technology ecosystem “as it transitions into its second-generation base station, transceiver, and WiFi access point,” said a filing in docket 14-177, posted Tuesday. Starry urged the FCC to promulgate rules on coordinated licensed sharing in the lower 37 GHz band.

The Millimeter Wave Coalition criticized Boeing's September filing opposing mmWC’s petition for modification of allocation table footnote US246 to facilitate innovative commercial uses of bands above 95 GHz, while protecting incumbent passive allocations in the bands. The mmWC “proposed a measured, responsible approach that would spur greater innovation in bands above 95 GHz,” the coalition said in docket 18-21, posted Tuesday: “New technologies and innovations are increasingly allowing diverse spectrum use cases, including among commercial and Federal users, without causing harmful interference or in any way negatively impacting the important missions of Federal incumbents.”

Huntington Beach and Fort Bragg, California, said the FCC should reject petitions by CTIA and the Wireless Infrastructure Association seeking further changes to wireless infrastructure rules (see 1909130062). “Local officials, government, and municipalities are best positioned to defend the interests of the people,” Huntington Beach said in docket 19-250. “Previous rule making and declaratory rulings of the FCC have reduced local agency input on the siting, construction, maintenance, and other matters involving wireless infrastructure and facilities to largely aesthetic matters and few highly limited land use matters,” Fort Bragg said, also posted Tuesday: The petitions “essentially remove the few remaining tools available to local communities to assist in the shaping of how wireless infrastructure and facilities can be successfully integrated into the community such facilities are intended to serve. Standards and requirements that work well for large urban cities, suburban towns, or agricultural regions are ill-fitted to a small, rural community located along a remote section of northern California coastline.”

The National Emergency Number Association said the FCC should require carriers to be able to locate the vertical location of wireless callers. NENA opposes CTIA’s “phased in” approach (see 1910100030), it told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing in docket 07-114, posted Friday. “Emphasizing public safety’s sensitivity to timeline slip, we noted that the proposed benchmarks have been in place since the Commission’s 2015 Roadmap,” NENA said. But NENA agrees with CTIA that the national emergency address database faces challenges. “We remain concerned that the NEAD could generate dangerously inaccurate location results for public safety, and that its compliance regime creates the potential for vast swaths of unserved 9-1-1 callers,” the group said. Top officials at NextNav met with Public Safety Bureau staff on the proposed requirement. “A major point of discussion during the meeting was the manner in which the Commission should determine compliance with its vertical location requirements in terms of handset penetration,” the company said: “The discussion included the definition of ‘z-axis capable devices’ and whether this could be defined as handsets manufactured after a certain date that include appropriate hardware components, such as a barometric pressure sensor or other capable component necessary to calculate altitude.”

Brad Gillen is CTIA executive vice president (see 1910100030).