T-Mobile officials held meetings at the FCC to lobby for their proposal for a C-band incentive auction and against the proposal by the C-Band Alliance. T-Mobile officials met aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks, said a filing Monday in docket 18-122. “The 180 megahertz of spectrum that would be made available under the C-Band Alliance proposal in this proceeding is insufficient because, among other reasons, it would be unable to support the mid-band spectrum requirements of multiple providers,” T-Mobile said: “The private process by which the C-Band Alliance would select licensees of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band spectrum is contrary to the Communications Act and the public interest.” The alliance has been at the FCC in recent days to defend its plan, which also garnered satellite criticism Monday (see 1903110059).
The U.S. needs to do more work “to get our arms around the opportunities and challenges with federal spectrum,” Doug Brake, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy, told us (see 1903070061). “The fragmentation and inefficient use of federal spectrum represents a tremendous opportunity to unlock value through better governance structures.” Because of recent changes, the spectrum relocation fund (SRF) can be tapped earlier than in the past, Brake said. “But there are limits on how this money can be used for the very upfront planning,” he said. “Also the SRF is not an unlimited source of money. On top of there being no great source of funding for this work, you also have real principal-agent problems.”
Allowing T-Mobile/Sprint to go through will "unleash a disruptive and effective" home broadband competitor serving unserved areas, T-Mobile said in a docket 18-197 posting Friday updating the FCC on its proposed T-Mobile Home Internet offering. Specifics, such as how many rural households will be eligible for the service and monthly pricing, were redacted.
FirstNet’s board and committees will meet March 20 in Jackson, Mississippi. Call-in is also available, said Friday’s Federal Register.
CTIA supported the FCC's proposed "sunset" of data recording and retention rules in a rural call completion draft order scheduled for a vote at commissioners' March 15 meeting. The rules "imposed burdens without contributing to solving RCC issues," filed the group, posted Thursday in docket 13-39. A requirement that "covered" originating providers maintain a "pre-packaged set of data for rural call completion rule compliance only," as noted by the draft, is "particularly costly for covered providers," CTIA said. The draft would eliminate the rules one year after the order's intermediate carrier service-quality standards take effect.
Dialog Semiconductor agreed to buy Silicon Motion Technology’s FCI mobile communications product line for $45 million cash, it said Thursday. The FCI product range -- including SoC technology for mobile TV, smartphones, tablets and portable navigation devices -- is designed for battery-powered IoT devices. Dialog CEO Jalal Bagherli called ultra-low-power Wi-Fi a “strong strategic fit," giving it the opportunity to combine Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low-energy chips for IoT, consumer and automotive markets. Dialog has shipped more than 250 million Bluetooth low-energy SoCs for IoT applications, and ultra-low-power Wi-Fi positions the company to drive integration with “optimized combo solutions,” it said. Silicon Motion’s mobile communications unit reported about $30 million revenue last year. The deal is expected to close this year and is subject to regulatory approval.
The Commerce Department seeks a May 29 deadline to respond to VTDigger at the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on the local news publication’s appeal of its Freedom of Information Act case against FirstNet, the department said (in Pacer) Thursday. The 2nd Circuit reinstated the case last week (see 1902280081).
Comments are due, March 23, replies 10 days later on a petition asking the FCC to reconsider a 3-1 decision in December clarifying text messages are a lightly regulated Communications Act Title I service (see 1812120043). The petition was filed by Public Knowledge and other public interest groups. Dates are set by a notice for Friday's Federal Register.
Rules for relicensing 700 MHz spectrum blocks in unserved areas, released by the FCC Wireless Bureau in February, take effect April 7, with publication of the order set for Friday's Federal Register. “For certain spectrum blocks in the 700 MHz band, licensees that fail to meet the Commission’s construction benchmarks keep the areas of the license that they serve, and the remaining unserved areas are returned to the Commission’s inventory for relicensing,” the FCC said. “This approach provides other parties with opportunities to acquire spectrum that is not adequately built out and to serve communities that might otherwise not receive service.”
The Harman Spark aftermarket connected-car device is the first product to get certification in CTIA’s IoT cybersecurity program, said the trade group Thursday. Certification testing took place at Ericsson’s lab in Richardson, Texas, and verified that the Spark met industry cybersecurity “best practices,” said CTIA. Device manufacturers may seek one of three certification levels, “depending on the sophistication of the device and the security characteristics desired or needed for its use,” it said. AT&T exclusively began offering the Spark in the fall at $79.99 under a variety of rate plans (see 1809250047). The Spark works on cars 1996 and newer to deliver emergency crash assistance, roadside assistance manager, geofencing, a Wi-Fi hot spot and other connectivity features.