The Office of Management and Budget approved new FCC information collection under an order revising rules to ensure compatibility with enhanced 911 that addressed Richardson, Texas' petition of reconsideration. The order "adopted rules designed to facilitate the rapid implementation of E911 by addressing what constitutes a valid Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) request to trigger wireless carriers’ obligations to provide E911 service to a PSAP," says a rule in docket 94-102 for the Federal Register Friday, the effective date for the information collection requirements.
Wi-Fi continues to grow, with 9 billion such devices worldwide, the Wireless Broadband Alliance reported Wednesday. WBA said the next generation of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 6, won’t be affected by 5G. “Rather, it will be embraced by operators to establish stronger convergence that will increase the efficiency of wireless networks,” WBA said. Survey respondents said the most important features of Wi-Fi 6 are orthogonal frequency-division multiple access uplink and downlink; self-optimizing capability; peak speed; and flexible channel sizes. The biggest gap is end-to-end security, 29 percent said.
Sprint emphasized the importance of 2.5 GHz spectrum to 5G deployment in meeting with FCC Wireless Bureau officials. Sprint repeated arguments (see 1810160012) against an incentive auction in the band. “Its leased 2.5 GHz spectrum" is critical and "its longstanding mutually beneficial partnership with the [educational broadband service] community" has "enhanced Sprint’s current LTE deployment and will enable its 5G mobile deployment in nine major markets in the first half of 2019,” it said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-120.
The FCC Wireless Bureau said Wednesday 58 of the 60 applications to bid in the upcoming 24 GHz auction have been deemed complete. S&T Communications and Spectrum Financial Partners were incomplete, said an order in docket 18-85. The auction starts after the 28 GHz auction ends.
General Motors is on track to commercialize next year, through its partnership with Honda, a “purpose-built” autonomous "ride-sharing" vehicle “in a dense urban environment, with safety as our gating metric,” said CEO Mary Barra on a Wednesday earnings call. Doing its AV development in downtown San Francisco “gives us probably the most exposure” to high-risk street and road “situations,” said Barra, when asked how GM measures AV safety. “We have done extensive work to understand how we will measure through actual road performance, simulation. We've gone back and looked at historical patterns as it relates to safety and we have a very well-defined plan of what we have to demonstrate to demonstrate that the AV is safer than a human driver.” Launching AVs in one city next year is "the first step in what will be a multiyear -- probably over decades -- transformation of how people move,” she said. A mile “is not a mile when you're doing AV testing,” Barra said. “The most complex miles that we're gaining experience in in San Francisco are very valuable, and so we're being efficient in driving the miles that we need to drive, getting the maximum learning.”
Local governments asked the FCC to stay its September wireless infrastructure order pending resolution of appeals in court. The order, to take effect Jan. 14 and aimed at speeding 5G buildout by targeting state and local hurdles to small-cell deployment, drew lawsuits from municipalities that said it went too far and from two wireless carriers saying it didn’t go far enough (see 1810290049). “Movants represent almost every local government in America, all of whom are significantly and adversely affected by the Order,” said the motion in docket 17-79 by the National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, NATOA, other state and national municipal groups and various cities and counties. “We are not here trying to specify every argument that may be raised on appeal, or raise every issue that was raised in the record,” they said. “The Commission has had ample opportunity to comment on them. What we show … is that there are enough issues to more than justify a stay.”
CTIA said it’s accepting devices for IoT cybersecurity certification that connect to a carrier network, to validate if they meet security requirements. “The program protects consumers and wireless infrastructure, while also creating a more secure foundation for smart cities, connected cars, mHealth and other IoT applications,” CTIA said Tuesday. Things are headed "toward an increasingly connected future” including appliances, cars and watches, said Chief Technology Officer Tom Sawanobori.
The Wireless Bureau made available Tuesday an FCC auction bidding system user guide for the upcoming 28 GHz auction. “This guide provides detailed instructions for bidding and viewing round results, and it includes the specifications for data file formats, including the format required for the bidding system’s bid upload feature,” said a public notice in docket 18-85.
High costs, the level of competition, spectrum issues and “ecosystem headwinds” make 5G fixed wireless “an unlikely candidate to solve rural America’s broadband challenges,” CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange research division reported Tuesday. “As Verizon begins deploying its 5G fixed wireless network in urban and suburban markets, we believe they are facing operational and technical issues that will limit the scale,” said Jeff Johnston, lead communications economist with the division. “While there may be limited use cases where the technology makes sense in urban and suburban markets, we don’t see the use of millimeter-wave spectrum in fixed wireless networks extending to rural markets.”
FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel wants the FCC to take a fresh look at the 5.9 GHz band, she responded Monday to test data (see 1810290063). “These results are long overdue,” Rosenworcel said. “We need to do more than just make our work public. We need to start a rulemaking.” NCTA also wants what it, too, called a fresh look at the band and "how 5.9 GHz spectrum can be an important element in delivering gigabit Wi-Fi."