Intel urged the FCC to proceed quickly on launching an NPRM on high-frequency spectrum. The plea came in a series of meetings at the agency, said a filing in docket 14-177. Intel also filed a white paper on the topic at the FCC as part of the discussion. Last week, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated the FCC would soon press ahead on an NPRM, building on last year’s notice of inquiry (see 1508030071). Intel calls the high-frequency spectrum millimeter wave (mmW) spectrum. “Intel believes the record in the NOI justifies moving forward with an NPRM,” Intel said in the white paper. “We believe it would be beneficial to marketplace developments if the FCC were to expeditiously make mmW frequencies available for 5G, and importantly, under flexible rules which incentivize incumbent license holders to put the spectrum to its highest-value use.” If the FCC moves quickly, it would be an encouragement to the ITU to add a discussion on high-frequency spectrum at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019, Intel said. “It will be crucial that the U.S. support the principle that other countries and/or regions could include additional frequency bands to the scope of the 5G agenda item during these discussions,” the company said. Quick FCC action would also “reduce investment risk and uncertainty in the U.S. especially as to particular bands,” Intel said. Intel recommended a mix of licensed and unlicensed bands in the spectrum.

Sprint notified the FCC it agreed to accept the terms and conditions for a waiver of the benchmark rate applicable to Cuba specified in the April 8, 2011, TeleCuba waiver order. The Sprint filing was posted Monday in docket 10-95. In June, Sprint announced it had become the first national carrier to offer an add-on plan making it easier for subscribers to call Cuba (see 1506150070).

The FCC should refrain from taking a heavy-handed approach on special access rules, Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter said Monday in a blog post. Spalter said the growth of the wireless industry depends on a robust fiber system to carry traffic from the cell tower to the Internet backbone. “Despite what some companies would have us believe, the market for special access is highly competitive,” he said. “Now is not the time to look backwards and devote significant resources to regulate the services of the past. Now is not the time to consider regulating fiber-based Ethernet special access services under the guise of ‘facilitating technology transitions’ Rather, the FCC should acknowledge the success of its deregulatory approach to special access and focus on our mobile future.”

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment Monday on an application by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol to modify its private land mobile radio license by adding three new 800 MHz channels to its license for the area in and around Salisbury. “North Carolina states that two channels currently licensed at its High Peak site in Burke County, NC are ‘impacted by interference from the City of Salisbury, North Carolina’ and that ‘on-air experience showed these two channels un-useable,'" the bureau said. “Consequently, North Carolina seeks to replace the two channels receiving interference with two alternate channels. It also seeks to add a third channel to the site to compensate for ‘increased traffic.’” Comments are due Sept. 9, replies Sept. 24.

The American Bankers Association wants the FCC to revise its June 18 declaratory ruling refining rules for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 1506180046), ABA said in a petition for reconsideration. ABA asked the FCC to revise the rules providing an exemption only for calls and texts sent to “the wireless telephone number provided by the customer of the financial institution.” This condition "will limit severely the ability of banks to send, and of customers to receive, the urgent calls and texts covered by the exemptions, with no offsetting benefit to customers and without advancing the privacy rights the TCPA is intended to serve,” the ABA said. “By largely limiting exempted calls to those sent to customer-provided mobile contact numbers, this condition significantly reduces the exemptions’ value to customers, who can already receive urgent messages covered by the exemptions, on a non-free-to-end-user basis, if prior express consent has been granted.” The association asked that the exemption cover instead affected customers and money transfer recipients. “Adoption of the proposed condition would restore the exemptions’ benefits without increasing the risk that the exemptions will be abused,” said the petition posted Monday in docket 02-278.

The FCC approved an order allowing public safety agencies to use vehicular repeater systems (VRS) and other mobile repeaters in six more control and telemetry channels in the VHF band. The channels are all at 173 MHz and are not otherwise heavily utilized, the FCC said in an order, approved by the full commission, released Monday. “Public safety entities have increasingly turned to VRS as a cost-effective way to enhance the overall effectiveness of a public safety communication system at a fraction of the cost of achieving the same result using infrastructure improvements,” the FCC said. But technical and fiscal considerations “limit the choice of discrete frequencies that are available for VRS use in any given system.” In 2011, Pyramid Communications said in a filing at the agency that the FCC should begin a rulemaking on the use of 170-172 MHz spectrum, and possibly other bands, for VRS (see 1111230049). The FCC approved Pyramid’s petition, in part, in 2013 and sought comment on expanding the channels available for VRS, which led to the new rules. The FCC said in the new order it also would continue to look at the use of VRS in other bands. “However, given public safety’s stated preference for the use of in-band VRS, coupled with the fact that it is currently not possible to reduce the requisite spectral separation through filter technology, we do not believe that frequencies in other bands are useful options for mobile repeater use at this time,” the agency said. The FCC is requiring that the use of the channels be coordinated and asked the “coordinator community” to develop a consensus protocol. The FCC will allow the repeaters to operate at 5 watts effective radiated power.

Sprint and Shentel announced an agreement Monday in which affiliate Shentel will acquire Sprint wholesale partner nTelos Wireless and spin off some of its assets to Sprint. In return, Sprint will pay Shentel up to $252 million over approximately five to six years. The deal must be approved by regulators, including the FCC, Sprint said. Upon closing, Sprint gets nTelos spectrum assets covering 5.4 million people in parts of Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, Sprint said. “Shentel will terminate the existing network wholesale agreements between Sprint and nTelos, continue to upgrade the nTelos network to 4G LTE and expand coverage in the areas with at least an additional 150 sites over the next three years, using spectrum acquired by Sprint and made available to Shentel as part of the transaction.” Shentel will also have access to Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum within its footprint, Sprint said. “Sprint and Shentel have a long successful relationship and this announcement will only make it stronger,” said Michael Schwartz, Sprint senior vice president-corporate and business development. “With this agreement, Sprint will grow its customer base, improve its financial performance, acquire spectrum in important markets and improve and expand 4G LTE coverage to Sprint and nTelos customers.”

Comments are due Sept. 8 on a public notice on the Land Mobile Communications Council’s proposed updated interference criteria allowing new, full-power, interstitial 12.5 kHz “offset” channels in the 809-817/854-862 MHz band (see 1505270015), the FCC Public Safety and Wireless bureaus said Friday. “Because we believe that the record in this proceeding would benefit from parties’ views on LMCC’s latest proposal, we seek comment on the revised and updated criteria,” the bureaus said in the July 24 PN.

Mobile Future urged the FCC to ignore suggestions from the cable industry or anyone else that the agency impose new regulations on LTE-unlicensed. LTE-U “is designed to avoid interference to existing operations,” the group said Friday in a blog post. “With hundreds of millions of consumers using devices that rely on Wi-Fi, wireless carriers would not risk undermining their customers’ wireless experience. These companies are committed to working collaboratively to find technical solutions and address any issues.” The FCC asked some important questions on LTE-U in a recent public notice, Mobile Future said. “But with technologies evolving faster than regulators can respond, key technical decisions are best made by network engineers, not through government intervention,” the group said. Meanwhile, FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp asked the LTE-U Forum a series of technical questions in a Wednesday letter posted in docket 15-105. He asked how LTE-U would utilize a “listen-before-talk” technique called carrier sense adaptive transmission (CSAT). "Though the record reflects significant testing of CSAT sharing protocol with Wi-Fi, commenters did not provide information regarding the rationale behind the selection of certain key parameters for CSAT,” Knapp wrote. “Specifically we would like to know, what was the basis for selecting the maximum permissible transmission and minimum listening periods? Some specifications seem to suggest that these parameters are implementation-dependent and may be set by operators. Please explain the decision to have CSAT transmit on a channel even if it appears to be occupied.” Knapp also asked if aspects of the control channel used in most iterations of LTE-U can be used to control or change any of the parameters of CSAT. “Will the unlicensed channel be used for downlink (one-way transmission) only, and if so, how does the LTE system know what capacity is available in the unlicensed channel and therefore how to manage the traffic between the licensed and unlicensed spectrum?” he asked Dean Brenner, Qualcomm senior vice president-government affairs. “How does the client device respond; does it only respond with acknowledgments in the licensed band? What does the licensed system assume about the availability of spectrum, for example that CSAT will find a channel no matter whether the spectrum is heavily occupied?” Knapp asked for a response within 30 days.

SouthernLINC Wireless will offer mission-critical 4G LTE Advanced data services to parent company Southern Co. utilities and to local businesses and government in the utilities' service territories, a Thursday news release from the carrier said. The first offerings will be available in Atlanta, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa in mid-2016, it said. Ericsson is providing the radio access network and evolved packet cores, and Cisco is providing the multiprotocol label switching equipment, the carrier said. In 2017, LTE data services will expand to the greater Montgomery area and across all of Georgia Power's service territory, it said. In 2018, LTE data services will be available in all service territories of Southern Co.'s electric utilities, SouthernLINC said.