The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approved a waiver for Proceq USA of its unlicensed ultra-wideband rules for a device that enables the “non-destructive testing of materials such as concrete, metals, rock and composites.” OET imposed a number of conditions, including the ground-penetrating radar device be certified by the FCC and on the technical specifications. “This device operating under the specified waiver conditions poses no greater risk of causing harmful interference to communication services than those devices already permitted under the existing rules and that grant of the waiver will serve the public interest,” OET said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau agreed to renew a single license in the 220-222 MHz band held by Cornerstone SMR, after denying renewal applications for 35 licenses in 2009. Cornerstone's website says the spectrum is used for the IoT and other communications, including by electric companies for a smart grid. The company didn’t comment. The bureau’s Mobility Division said in a Wednesday order “construction of some facilities without providing actual service did not satisfy the substantial service standard for license renewal.” “Cornerstone had argued that it faced challenges in securing equipment, while the Bureau determined that the reason was not sufficient because ‘a licensee’s success or failure at contracting or investing in the manufacture of desired equipment at desired specifications is not the basis for determining substantial service.’” Cornerstone asked for reconsideration on 16 of the 35 licenses. A showing of “some network coverage and a willingness to sell services cannot be construed as actually putting the spectrum into use for license renewal purposes,” the bureau said. Staff sought information on all 16 licenses and got a satisfactory response on one.

The FCC logged more comments from tribes opposing changes to wireless infrastructure rules teed up for next week’s commissioners’ meeting, as expected, (see 1803130057). A government official said Wednesday tribes appear to be waiting until late to make their case. The draft order would clarify deployment of small cells isn't a “federal undertaking” within the meaning of the National Historic Preservation Act or a “major federal action” under the National Environmental Policy Act. It would reduce red tape for tribal reviews of projects off tribal lands and clarify that applicants “have no legal obligation to pay upfront fees” when seeking tribal comment on proposed deployments. The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers had meetings with aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel. The FCC didn’t engage in true government-to-government consultation with tribal nations, the group said, posted Wednesday in docket 17-79. “Government-to-government consultation requires joint development between the FCC and tribes of an agenda well in advance of the meeting and sufficient detail for tribal representatives to make an informed decision as to their participation and ability to make an informed decision." The group said the FCC can’t change the definition of a “federal undertaking” under the NHPA and industry inflated the cost of compliance. “The Commission has a trust responsibility to tribal nations, not to the wireless industry,” said the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico. “The draft Report and Order does not reflect this trust responsibility and diminishes the Pueblo of Pojoaque’s ability to protect cultural and historic properties.” The FCC mustn’t exclude small cells from environmental and historic review, said Patricia Garcia-Plotkin, tribal historic preservation officer with California’s Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. “Tribal Nations are responsible stewards of their cultural heritage and have expertise unique to Tribes and their members,” she said. “The NHPA and NEPA were created to consider proposed projects impacts to the environment and a process to potentially avoid or mitigate the impacts. In my 12 years with Agua Calienate many small projects have been planned on culturally significant areas.”

The Rural Wireless Association said the FCC’s “unambitious” Mobility Fund II threshold for areas deemed to have 4G LTE coverage -- download speeds of at least 5 Mbps with no corresponding upload speed requirement -- is “insufficient to ensure that rural Americans receive mobile broadband services that are ‘reasonably comparable’ to those available in urban areas.” RWA slammed the rules for challenging whether an area qualifies for support. “Stakeholders cannot rely upon the Commission’s challenge process to adequately address the map’s shortcomings,” RWA said in a statement. “Of significant concern is the fact that the Commission’s process will rely on a system of square kilometer, rather than square mile, grid squares. In the majority of rural America, roads are situated directly on the borders of a one mile by one mile grid. The Commission’s decision to ignore this reality has yielded a challenge scheme in which thousands of kilometer grid squares lack the necessary road coverage and will therefore be unmeasurable using drive tests.”

​The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California wants a federal court in San Francisco to order the Transportation Security Administration to release records sought under Freedom of Information Act requests into the agency’s policies on searching domestic air passengers’ electronic devices at San Francisco International Airport, ACLU-NC said in a Monday complaint (in Pacer). TSA “has provided ALCU-NC with no records” in response to two FOIA requests it sent Dec. 20, one (in Pacer) to TSA headquarters in Washington, the other (in Pacer) to the agency’s San Francisco field office, said the complaint. The requests sought copies of emails, text messages, reports, training manuals and other records and documents germane to the “policies, procedures, or protocols regarding the search of passengers’ electronic devices.” Recent statistics “demonstrate that the number of these searches have multiplied year after year,” said the complaint. “Access to information about electronic device searches at airports is necessary to inform meaningful public debate over the scope of government conduct that potentially threatens core civil rights and liberties protected by the Constitution.” Though federal agencies have published their policies for searches of electronic devices at international borders, “the federal government’s policies on searching electronic devices of domestic air passengers remains shrouded in secrecy,” it said. TSA representatives didn’t comment Tuesday.

The GPS Innovation Alliance opposed an FCC waiver sought by Sensible Medical Innovations (SMI) for a system that uses ultra-wideband medical imaging to obtain lung fluid measurements for congestive heart failure patients in a noninvasive way (see 1802090040). Initial comments were due in docket 18-39 Monday. SMI hasn’t offered “sufficient technical information to justify” the waiver grant, said the GPS group. “The Commission takes a conservative approach applying these waiver standards to petitioners seeking to operate equipment co-channel with incumbent operations, placing a heavy burden on the petitioner to demonstrate how it will provide adequate protection from interference,” the alliance said. “When the petitioner does not adequately demonstrate how it will avoid creating interference, the Commission has not acted favorably.” The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council urged approval. “NPSTC is guided primarily by its view that a noninvasive medical system to measure lung fluid in congestive heart failure patients provides positive benefits to patients, and potentially to emergency medical service (EMS) personnel that may need to serve these patients,” NPSTC said.

Electric utilities urged the FCC to keep census-tract sized geographic licenses for priority access licenses (PALs) in the 3.5 GHz shared band. The Edison Electric Institute reported on a meeting between members and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, overseeing the FCC’s look at changing the rules for the citizens broadband radio service band. If the FCC approves larger PALs, utilities and other critical industry companies won’t be able to compete with wireless carriers for the licenses, EEI said in docket 17-258. “The industry is investing approximately $100 billion per year on building new infrastructure,” EEI said. “Much of this investment is targeted at deployment of the Smart Grid/Energy loT. Not only will this help improve grid safety, reliability and security, it will also facilitate the offering of new services related to Smart Communities, microgrids, electric vehicles and a host of other new consumer services. The current spectrum that electric utilities have is not sufficient to meet the growing capacity requirements.” General Electric recently stressed keeping the current license sizes (see 1802140055).

After two years of “unprecedented capacity expansion” for smartphone panels, South Korean manufacturers in 2018 will “essentially halt” new active-matrix OLED panel factory construction, while Chinese rivals "build new factories as fast as they can,” IHS reported Monday. As the smartphone market matures, “concern” is growing that sales “may not continue to increase at rates as high as previously hoped,” it said: With display and smartphone performance specifications “already excellent,” the phone replacement cycle is longer.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology asked for comments by April 11, replies April 23, in docket 18-70 on a waiver sought last week by Google for its Project Soli sensor technology. It uses the 57-64 GHz band and Google sought a waiver to operate at higher power levels consistent with what's allowed in Europe, OET said. “The requested higher signal powers will allow its Project Soli sensors to recognize gestures when a user’s hand is farther from a device," OET said Google says. "The higher power would make the feature more convenient, intuitive, and useful for consumers. ... Its devices could be particularly meaningful for users with mobility, speech, or tactile impairments.”

T-Mobile is pleased the FCC is allowing the early repacking of some Puerto Rican broadcasters, T-Mobile executives said in a meeting in San Juan last week with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who was on a trip there and to the U.S. Virgin Islands (see 1803120056). The early transition of the TV stations there “serves the dual policy objectives of repurposing spectrum for wireless broadband use while ensuring continued vitality of the television broadcast industry,” the carrier filed in docket 17-344. T-Mobile has 50 MHz of 600 MHz spectrum in Puerto Rico “and the early repack of broadcasters there allows us to deploy this spectrum far sooner than would otherwise be possible, including for 5G service, as equipment is available.” The executives backed a more aggressive timetable for selling high-frequency licenses. “The public interest can be even better served by the Commission moving quickly to auction all of the millimeter wave bands allocated for terrestrial mobile use in the Spectrum Frontiers proceeding, including multiple (if not all) of those bands together in the initial millimeter wave auction. These include the 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 47 GHz bands.”