The Enterprise Wireless Association said it gets “numerous ‘Have You Seen This’ inquiries” every month from “unknowing” business/industrial land transportation (B/ILT) and public safety licensees targeted by Federal Licensing Inc., a firm near the FCC office in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The firm warns licensees that if they don’t keep their license current, the “licensee is in direct violation of the FCC Rules and susceptible to newly imposed fines,” EWA said Wednesday: The letters suggest “the licensee might save itself from the wrath of the FCC by writing a $124 check to Federal Licensing.” Federal Licensing didn’t comment. “We hope more licensees would pause for just a moment and ask themselves ‘does this solicitation make any sense whatsoever?’” EWA said in a news release. “If Federal Licensing really wanted to do good, maybe they should send their solicitations to those that are using non-FCC compliant radios from Asia on an unlicensed basis. How do these folks sleep at night?”

Verizon officials said AT&T’s December proposal for a temporary, voluntary repack of the 38.6-40 GHz band (see 1712120010) would be both difficult and time-consuming to put into effect. The Verizon officials met with Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale and others at the FCC. “Verizon fully supports a fair and timely reorganization of the 39 GHz band,” said a filing in docket 14-177. “We do not believe, however, that an AT&T voucher auction would accomplish either goal. Instead the proposal would diminish the value of incumbent licenses and delay putting those spectrum licenses to early use for 5G to the benefit consumers.” Carriers plan to make initial 5G deployments in high-band spectrum like the 39 GHz band.

Mother’s Day consumer spending is expected to total a near-record $23.1 billion this year, including $2.1 billion on consumer electronics, said the National Retail Federation Tuesday, with 18-24-year-old shoppers the most likely use smartphones to research purchases.

AT&T and CitySwitch signed a tower agreement as AT&T builds out FirstNet and focuses on 5G. CitySwitch will start tower construction as early as the second half of the year, said a Tuesday news release. “These new structures will add to the overall communications infrastructure in the U.S. and fulfill the need for new locations where towers don’t exist today,” AT&T said. “The agreement also gives AT&T the opportunity to relocate equipment from existing infrastructure currently with other landlords.”

The latest development of an eSIM standard is “on hold,” pending DOJ investigation (see 1804230063), GSMA said. AT&T and Verizon, the subjects of the probe, deny any wrongdoing. GSMA said it's “cooperating fully” with Justice. “This standard contains a wide range of features, including the option for the eSIM to be locked,” GSMA said last weekend. “In the United States, consumers would have this option; however, they would need to explicitly consent to this under specific commercial agreements with their mobile operator, for example when purchasing a subsidised device.”

NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management and its Institute for Telecommunication Sciences are making “significant investments in computer simulation capabilities” with an eye on improving how spectrum is managed, Keith Gremban, institute director, blogged Tuesday. “As demand for spectrum for commercial use continues to grow, policymakers are exploring spectrum sharing as a way to expand capacity while still fulfilling the needs of federal agencies,” Gremban wrote. “This model can work only if rules are designed to maximize the value of spectrum resources without compromising the quality and reliability of telecommunications.” In current modeling, spectrum managers separate systems using distance and frequency, he said. “The amount of separation is determined by interference protection criteria (IPC), which can be estimated through analysis, measurement, or computer simulation,” he said. “Although the analytic method is fast it can also be highly inaccurate, making accurate and repeatable measurements difficult to obtain.” Computer simulation can be used “when measurements are not possible, especially when trying to assess a multitude of spectrum sharing scenarios,” he said.

Verizon’s push to 5G is “progressing as planned,” said Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis on a financial call Tuesday as the carrier unveiled Q1 results. “We are quickly approaching the initial launch of our residential broadband service later this year, which will be the first use case of a broader 5G strategy,” Ellis said. “We are driving the ecosystem for future growth across the entire array of 5G services.” Verizon “successfully completed” its 11-city 5G pre-commercial trials and is moving to the commercial deployment phase “for the residential broadband launch in the second half of this year,” he said. “Earlier this month, we performed successful end-to-end 5G data sessions in these locations using commercial equipment that will be deployed [in] the launch later this year.” The carrier has said Sacramento will be one of the three to five cities where it will launch 5G later this year, and it will name other cities as launch gets closer, he said. Ellis said 5G service launch initially will use the carrier’s V5GTF standard, rather than the industry’s 5G standard released by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project late last year. “This gives us the opportunity to get a product out in the market before others,” he said. Ellis declined to say whether Verizon is likely to participate in upcoming FCC auctions of high-band spectrum. “We are very comfortable with the spectrum assets that we own as we move into the 5G world,” he said. “But at the right price, spectrum is interesting.” Operating revenue rose 6.6 percent from the year-ago quarter to $31.77 billion as profit rose 31 percent to $4.67 billion. The carrier had a net increase of 260,000 retail postpaid connections. "We began 2018 with strong momentum, and we expect it to continue throughout the year,” said CEO Lowell McAdam. “We are positioning Verizon for long-term growth while executing our strategy today and leading the way for the next cycle of growth for the industry.”

Emergency-number officials and providers sought one more week to file FCC replies to a notice of inquiry on location-based routing for wireless 911 calls (see 1803230023). Replies are due June 21. In a joint motion last week in docket 18-64, the National Emergency Number Association, CTIA and others said many key parties will be attending NENA’s national conference June 16-21 in Nashville.

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance said members of the Land Mobile Communications Council broadly support allowing a time-limited period for incumbent 800 MHz licensees to add expansion band (EB) and guard band (GB) channels to existing systems before opening the spectrum to new entrants. “Each LMCC member represents both 800 MHz incumbents that need to expand the capacity of their existing facilities and entities that wish to acquire EB/GB channels to establish new systems,” the alliance said in a filing in docket 16-261. "Some of those potential applicants operate in bands other than 800 MHz; others are 800 MHz licensees that wish to deploy systems outside their current market area.”

Representatives of Motorola Solutions Inc. pressed Wireless Bureau staff for action on a petition for reconsideration it filed last year asking the FCC to revisit allowing automatic or periodic GPS and data transmissions in the general mobile radio service (GMRS) band. “MSI discussed the need for further regulatory relief to enable automatically initiated transmissions of GPS location data in the 462/467 MHz frequencies” shared by the GMRS and the family radio service, said a filing in docket 10-119. “Voice and data services can operate in a shared environment in a manner that furthers the efficient use of the spectrum without undue harm to existing quality of service.”