Carriers will focus this year on finding ways to maximize the use of their existing infrastructure, as they deploy 5G, blogged CommScope Senior Vice President Farid Firouzbakht Tuesday. “The race to 5G has become as much about civil engineering as it is about technology,” he said: “One of our customers said 5G is the biggest civil engineering program of all Gs. With 5G there are new frequencies, meaning new equipment will have to be deployed on top of already crowded towers. Operators face significant challenges as this combination of heavier 4G and 5G equipment puts phone masts under additional strain.” Firouzbakht said another big focus in 2022 will be on strategies to simplify deployments. “We’ll see the first layer of 5G gain traction mainly in cities,” he said. “In addition to faster mobile speeds, the industry will test new use cases such as customised fan experiences, 5G connected collars on farms and remote-controlled ultrasound scans over public 5G networks. The spectrum used for these new services will require densification and operators will seek technology that enables local coverage.” Expect continued focus on open radio access networks, he said. “There is still plenty of work to be done around interoperability between vendors,” he said: “The focus will be on long term planning with specific emphasis on O-RAN as a concept for 4G as operators consider new strategies on how new standards will play out in 5G rollouts, especially in Europe.”

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved Bosch’s waiver request for its Wallscanner D-Tect 200 frequency-hopped ultra-wideband wall imaging system (see 2008200030). “We find that opening a path for the sale and operation of this next generation equipment will allow Bosch to deploy its system to enhance the through-wall imaging capabilities for construction professionals, in furtherance of the public interest,” OET said Tuesday. The device will be used by builders “for detection and inspection of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, electric cables, wooden beams, plastic pipes, and for identification of structural flaws within construction materials,” the docket 20-268 order said.

APCO said Tuesday it’s considering an appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision last week upholding the FCC’s 6 GHz rules (see 2112280047). The court remanded to the FCC for further work a single, narrow issue, raised by broadcasters. “While federal review courts typically accord the FCC deference, we are of course disappointed because we remain concerned that new unlicensed devices will cause harmful interference to public safety communications,” the group tweeted: “We will consider our additional options in court and continue to actively work directly with the FCC to ensure that public safety operations are protected.”

Results of the 3.45 GHz auction are likely to be made public as early as this week, New Street’s Philip Burnett told investors Monday. Burnett said the consensus seems to be that AT&T spent $9 billion, T-Mobile $6 billion, Dish Network $5 billion and Verizon just over $2 billion. That could be wrong, with Verizon more likely to have taken a pass, he said. “Our conviction that Verizon sat out isn’t especially high, but we’d note that Verizon” management has gone “to serious lengths to point out the deficiencies in 3.45 GHz … when compared to C-Band, which they described as a ‘clean’ band of spectrum,” he said: “We also believe that the equipment initially deployed to towers by Verizon for C-Band isn’t compatible with 3.45 GHz spectrum.”

NTIA raised concerns about the use of the 70/80/90 GHz bands for high altitude platform stations or other stratospheric-based platform services, absent protections for scientific studies in the bands. NTIA attached a filing by NASA, the Commerce Department and the Air Force, in its filing posted Thursday in docket 20-133. The government seeks protections for earth exploration satellite service (EESS) (passive) and space research service (SRS) (passive) in 86-92 GHz, EESS (active) and SRS (active) in 94-94.1 GHz, and fixed satellite service and mobile satellite service operations in 71-76 GHz (space-to-Earth) and 81-86 GHz (Earth-to-space). An October Wireless Bureau public notice “does not address, in detail, provisions or requirements to protect Science Services operating in adjacent-bands allocated for EESS (active and passive) and SRS (passive)” and “does not extend the existing regulations to the protection of the adjacent band services,” the agencies said. Replies are due Monday in the proceeding (see 2111010046). “The Joint Agencies reiterate the importance of the … bands to meteorology and climate science,” the filing said: “Any additional usages for active services should be based on sound engineering studies to determine the limitations on unwanted emission levels.”

American Tower closed on its $10.1 billion buy of data center management company CoreSite, it said Tuesday. “As 5G deployments and wireless and wireline convergence accelerate, we expect to leverage CoreSite’s highly interconnected data center facilities and critical cloud on-ramps to drive strong, consistent, recurring growth while enhancing the value of our existing tower real estate through emerging edge compute opportunities,” said American Tower CEO Tom Bartlett.

Comments are due Feb. 28, replies March 29, on a Further NPRM proposing an enhanced competition incentive program, says a Federal Register notice for Wednesday. Commissioners approved the FNPRM 4-0 in November (see 2111180071).

Key Bridge completed testing of its environmental sensing capability software for the citizens broadband radio service band, said a filing posted Monday in docket 15-319. NTIA initially required Key Bridge to complete testing with the agency’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences by Dec. 31, 2020, but that was extended by a year due to “COVID-19 related access restrictions at the ITS laboratory,” the filing said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau approved license modification applications sought by PTC-220, which represents the nation’s seven Class I freight railroads, to provide positive train control. The Monday order covers 31 states and the District of Columbia, in four license areas. The FCC earlier OK’d a waiver for rail lines serving 16 western states (see 2112140087). “We have reviewed the License Modification Applications, PTC-220’s engineering studies, its Interference Mitigation Plan, and all other filings in the record before us, and find that the public interest in facilitating rail safety will be served by granting PTC-220 permanent authority to operate the 2,265 PTC base stations, 16,108 PTC wayside stations, and related mobile stations,” the bureau said: The order will also “benefit Amtrak and other railroads that operate as tenants on the members’ railroad networks as well as passenger and commuter railroads leasing spectrum from PTC-220 to implement PTC on their own lines in the four license areas.” The railroads are using automated maritime telecommunications system spectrum.

The California Public Utilities Commission urged the FCC to impose new requirements about network resilience on wireless carriers. The commission noted it filed the comments on time but in the wrong docket. They were posted Monday in docket 21-346. “Communications service providers have not sufficiently partnered with emergency responders to assist in ensuring public safety during disasters that cause communications network outages,” the CPUC said: “Adopt a set of mandatory resiliency strategies, particularly, a minimum backup power duration of 72 hours.” Require carriers to provide “accurate, real-time, and detailed information” on outages and “consider a process for issuing penalties when communications networks’ outages occur,” the commission said. Initial comments were due Dec. 16 (see 2112170065).