Despite all of the buzz about 5G, American Tower’s “view” is 4G “will continue to serve as the primary network for most of us for quite some time,” Senior Director-Investor Relations Igor Khislavsky told a Raymond James investment conference Monday. For the next five to 10 years, “if not longer, 4G is still going to be the underlying foundation of most mobile networks,” he said. Expect 4G “to be enhanced with 5G applications over time, especially when you get into new types of use cases for 5G,” including edge computing, autonomous driving and augmented reality, he said. As new spectrum gets deployed in the 600 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands, “equipment that's utilizing that spectrum gets placed on our towers incrementally, and that's where we benefit,” he said. The year 2021 seems a “reasonable” forecast for when the industry will “start seeing some meaningful deployments” of 5G, said Khislavsky. “The standard-setting process for 5G actually isn't complete yet,” he said. “Once you see some 5G handsets in the marketplace, once you obviously see those standards being set," it will be "a fairly rapid deployment,” he said.

Neither Chairman Ajit Pai “nor his staff urged any FCC licensee to challenge” the September ruling/order to remove local barriers to small-cell deployment (see 1809260029) in a bid to reduce the probability the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would ultimately hear the case, said Office of Legislative Affairs Director Tim Strachan in letters to House Commerce Committee Democratic leaders released Monday night. House Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., wrote Pai in January on concerns the FCC attempted to “game the judicial lottery procedure” for challenges to the small-cells order (see 1901250010). Those challenges have since been consolidated at the 9th Circuit (see 1902050030). Pai and staff didn't make “any threats, implied or otherwise, against any licensee regarding such challenges,” Strachan wrote. “And as indicated in the attached documents, the Office of General Counsel only had standard communications with litigants related to its role in collecting petitions for review for transmission to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. As you know, this is a multimember agency, and [Pai] cannot speak on behalf of his colleagues.” The FCC attached “correspondence between FCC employees and FCC licensees with respect to the legal challenges” to the small-cells order, but those documents weren't available Tuesday. House Commerce is “reviewing the information we received from the FCC and expect additional information soon,” a spokesperson said.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology rejected the Ultra Wide Band Alliance’s request for more time to file replies on the 6 GHz NPRM. Replies are due March 18 and the alliance asked for 14 more days. “Commission proceedings involving spectrum use can be expected to contain lengthy or detailed filings of a technical nature, and this proceeding is consistent with that model,” OET said Monday in 18-295. “We find nothing sufficiently unique or unusual that would warrant delaying the reply comment cycle.”

DOJ could potentially mandate divestiture of spectrum or network facilities and other assets, or require the new T-Mobile to share its network as part of approving T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint, New Street’s Blair Levin wrote investors Monday. Spectrum divestiture could require sell-off of the 2.5 GHz spectrum owned by Sprint, Levin said. “The first bucket involves forcing the company to divest some or all of the 2.5GHz spectrum,” Levin said. “If it’s a small amount, we are not sure what it would accomplish, but if it is a big amount or all of it, we are perplexed by the antitrust logic. It would destroy a lot of the synergies that are essential to approving the consolidation from four to three competitors.” Meanwhile, the Puerto Rico Telecom Bureau raised concerns about the deal. "The T-Mobile/Sprint Transaction Task Force [should] pay particular attention to the Commission’s spectrum policies applicable to Puerto Rico to ensure such policies promote competition, innovation, and serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-197. “With the consolidation of two of the four major carriers, the Bureau is concerned that smaller carriers and new entrants to the market would be priced out of obtaining the necessary spectrum to serve the population of Puerto Rico.”

More than 109,000 from 198 countries and territories attended Mobile World Congress last week in Barcelona, GSMA said Friday.

Virtual Network Communications got special temporary authority from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to demonstrate its “Emergency Public Safety Communications in a Backpack” technology using FirstNet spectrum this week at the Las Vegas Convention Center during the International Wireless Communications Expo. “Licensee should be aware that other stations may be licensed on these frequencies and if any interference occurs, the licensee of this authorization will be subject to immediate shut down,” OET said.

NTCH's claims that the FCC and Dish Network reached a backroom agreement on H-Block spectrum are "unsupported and erroneous," Dish said in a docket 18-1241 intervenor brief (in Pacer) Thursday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Dish said undoing FCC orders and unwinding Auction 96 would throw a monkey wrench into its plans to build out its lower 700 MHz E block, H block and AWS-4 licenses and "strand" millions of dollars of its investments. It said NTCH -- in challenging the agency's H-block actions (see 1812130070) -- didn't cite any statute or case law backing the idea the FCC can't consider the kind of minimum bidding commitment offered by Dish in connection with public interest analysis. Dish said neither it nor the agency concealed the details of Dish's proposal and the commission evaluated it in a public proceeding in which NTCH took part. NTCH outside counsel didn't comment.

NTCA officials discussed their opposition to the T-Mobile/Sprint deal and support for making more 2.5 GHz spectrum available for licensed use, during meetings with aides to FCC Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr, said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-97. “NTCA expressed its doubts about the New T-Mobile fulfilling its promises to offer 5G service to rural America and how the deal would likely result in a loss of rural service.” It discussed “relationships its members have with Sprint for roaming and spectrum leasing” and said “T-Mobile has not been a willing partner in many rural areas.” Representatives of cable operator Altice said they met the FCC's T-Mobile/Sprint transaction team. “Altice discussed its spectrum strategy in detail,” the company said: “Altice emphasized that the proposed merger limits entry by new sources of retail wireless competition by eliminating the only real source of competition in the wholesale market today -- the competition between Sprint and T-Mobile.”

Hype about 5G was high at the Mobile World Congress, but reality will be “tougher,” Wells Fargo’s Jennifer Fritzsche wrote investors Thursday. “Hype of 5G seems to be reaching a point of too much euphoria,” she wrote. Carriers likely won’t see revenue growth until 2020-21, the analyst said: “Early 5G winners will be the ‘arms dealers’ which supply the infrastructure. There seems to be particular focus on the Edge infrastructure theme with mobile edge computing capabilities.” Sprint said it will deploy 5G in four markets by May and nine cities the first half of the year, offering “very specific” coverage maps with more detail than any other carrier, Fritzsche said. T-Mobile indicated more interest in the high-band spectrum for 5G than it showed in the past, she said.

The 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated VTDigger’s appeal of its Freedom of Information Act case against FirstNet. The court Wednesday granted (in Pacer) the local news publication’s motion in case 18-2819 after dismissing the case due to a missed briefing deadline (see 1902190024).