The FCC should put strong penalties in place for 3.5 GHz operations that interfere repeatedly -- such as multiple times within a six-month period -- with C-band fixed-satellite services (FSS), General Communication (GC) said in a filing posted Monday in docket 12-354. The Alaskan telecom company said as the FCC is crafting rules for spectrum access system (SAS) administrators to help safeguard the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band (see 1512170025), SAS should be able to protect adjacent 3700-4200 FSS operations using interference mitigation, remediation and enforcement tools. "The SAS must ... be equipped with the capability to immediately stop harmful interference" by citizen broadband radio service devices (CBSD), GC said, saying such interference should be required to be fixed within two hours of being reported to or recognized by the SAS. "Any longer timeframe could result in significant public safety concerns," it said. Given the aggregate effect numerous CBSDs could have on FSS stations, the FCC should set specific noise floor, default protection value and upper edge limits for interference, GC said.

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg “suggested that the U.S. should build on the success of 4G LTE deployment by ensuring adequate spectrum and a flexible environment for new 5G services,” in meetings with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and others at the agency, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-177. Vestberg asked the FCC to consider a 5G test bed and to offer additional flexibility for 5G services, it said. Vestberg also said spectrum aggregation “will be increasingly important to solve ever increasing data usage.”

The Supreme Court declined to hear the Electronic Privacy Information Center's appeal to get Department of Homeland Security records about its policy for shutting down cellphone service, the privacy group said Monday on its website. It said the high court let stand an appeals court ruling issued last February, which overturned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's decision in November 2013 that sided with EPIC. Part of the reason EPIC said it sought the records stems from a 2011 incident in which Bay Area Rapid Transit officials in San Francisco shut down cell service inside several stations during a second protest involving the shooting and death of a homeless man by a BART officer. The privacy group submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to DHS in July 2012 for standard operating procedure documents for cellular service shutdowns and other related information. DHS denied the request in August 2012, prompting EPIC to file a lawsuit in February 2013. The group, which said it obtained a redacted version of the federal government's shutdown policy, said the appeals court ruling interprets FOIA exemptions "so broadly that it threatens to conceal" federal agency records from public access due to concerns about security procedures.

The FCC should ignore T-Mobile’s request that the agency reject AT&T’s proposed buy of three lower 700 MHz C-block licenses from East Kentucky Network, AT&T told the agency Monday. T-Mobile made its case against the deal Dec. 23 (see 1512240027). T-Mobile questioned whether AT&T is truly committed to deploying in 700 MHz when it's seeking a rule change to deploy in cellular spectrum. “It’s time to stop the magenta madness,” said Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-federal regulatory, in a blog post. It's fact that AT&T is continuing to buy 700 MHz spectrum in rural communities around the country, Marsh wrote. “This is part of our ongoing commitment to bring LTE to rural America, a commitment that T-Mobile does not appear to share,” she said. “At the same time, AT&T is seeking a rule change that will permit us to provide LTE services more efficiently on our existing 850 MHz deployments. And this is part of our effort to effectively utilize our current spectrum resources for the benefit of our customers.” AT&T’s LTE deployment is based on its 700 MHz spectrum, but in the absence of that band, “it should be no surprise that AT&T can more rapidly expand an existing LTE network on cellular spectrum than it could construct a new LTE network on another band,” she said. “T-Mobile stands by its opposition to AT&T’s bid to acquire low-band spectrum in parts of rural Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio," said Steve Sharkey, chief-engineering and technology policy at T-Mobile. "While AT&T seeks to harm its competitors by leaving them with little but mid- or high-band spectrum to cover rural areas, AT&T recently justified a waiver to deploy next-generation technology on low-band spectrum by saying that using high-band for the same deployment would ‘take many years.’ The FCC should boost competition and protect consumers by denying AT&T’s proposed low-band spectrum acquisition.”

Given the risk of air-to-ground (ATG) interference, the FCC should make cellular operators work out mitigation agreements or coordinate with adjacent channel licensees before starting operations at higher power levels using any power spectral density (PSD) models, Gogo said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-40. Cellular operators also should be required to adopt stronger out-of-band-emission (OOBE) limits on cellular operations near 800 MHz ATG base stations, Gogo said. AT&T has been pushing for use of PSD models in complying with the FCC's radiated power limits for 800 MHz cellular operations in parts of Missouri (see 1504130031). That idea also has Verizon support (see 1508120057). While the 800 MHz band should be used, operations there based around PSD models also raise the risk of OOBE interference to the adjacent 800 MHz ATG band, which could affect in-flight broadband services, Gogo said.

From more ubiquitous Wi-Fi to "smart everything," 2016 will bring with it several technological advances, the Wi-Fi Alliance said in a news release Thursday. The group's predictions for the year include progress on a test regimen for LTE-U/Wi-Fi coexistence, resulting in an industry-agreed-upon test plan; increased use of Wi-Fi location capabilities in new applications; an updated Wi-Fi Certified ac, which is based on IEEE 802.11ac certification and will bring with it new features such as multiple-input and multiple-output technologies for wireless communication; and the launch of the WiGig certification for wireless devices working at multigigabit speeds. With the number of connected devices expected to hit 38.5 billion by 2020, the Wi-Fi Alliance said more companies will look to its Implementer membership category, which makes Wi-Fi certification accessible to more companies that don't specialize directly in connectivity technology development. And it said municipal Wi-Fi deployments will increase, as will Wi-Fi networks in such locations as sports stadiums, and Wi-Fi connectivity will become a standard feature in new cars.

The number of complaints electric cooperatives received when they stopped making service-related calls, a practice they adopted under threat of litigation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), highlights the importance of these communications, said the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) in an FCC ex parte letter posted Thursday in docket 02-278. The proceeding, originally filed by the American Gas Association and Edison Electric Institute, asks the FCC to declare that providing a number to an energy utility constitutes prior express consent under the TCPA. NRECA said getting express written consent for service-related calls and texts from all customers who want to receive them is impractical and most people don't reply.

Arguments by AT&T that Dish, SNR Wireless and Northstar Wireless should be penalized in the incentive auction as “defaulters” are “regulatory gamesmanship” and should be rejected, Dish, Northstar and SNR said in a joint response posted in docket 12-268 Friday. AT&T's arguments are “nothing more than a transparent effort by an established wireless operator to create obstacles to limit participation in the upcoming auction for low-band spectrum that is critical for new wireless market entry,” the joint filing said. The issues connected with the AWS-3 auction raised by AT&T have already been decided by the Wireless Bureau, and AT&T can't raise them again, the joint filing said. “Styling the requested relief as a petition for declaratory ruling, which AT&T supports, does not change that fact,” the filing said.

Ericsson said it’s partnering with Verizon to develop low-power wide-area (LPWA) networks for IoT applications. Verizon is going to use Ericsson’s Networks Software 17A software to scale its LTE network for expanded IoT use, which “will enable us to expand our coverage of low-cost IoT devices while supporting years of battery life,” Verizon Vice President-Network Technology and Planning Adam Koeppe said in a Thursday Ericsson news release. “Verizon's nationwide LTE network provides an ideal platform for the acceleration of IoT applications that benefit consumers, industry and cities. We're committed to simplifying IoT and have introduced a developer platform -- ThingSpace -- and new network advancements that do just that.” Joint Ericsson-Verizon IoT use case trials that began in 2014 are now set to continue through the end of 2016, Ericsson said.

AT&T executives shared the carrier's 5G "vision, key issues and architectural concepts" in a Tuesday meeting with front office and other FCC staff from three bureaus and offices, the company said in a filing posted the next day in docket 14-177. It said those issues were discussed in this presentation. "Key" emerging trends for the fifth-generation networks include "extremely high speed mobile broadband, and low speed IoT," it said. "Simultaneous connections to multiple technologies" could include LTE-A and unlicensed, with a "flexible" radio access technology (RAT) design, AT&T said. Adding new sub-6 GHz RAT optimized for IoT could occur, a slide said, next to "(~2020)," while new millimeter-wave RAT for speed and capacity was next to "(~2022)." The 5G RAT could be designed to allow for "massive connectivity," the company said. It also eyed virtualized specifications. Executives at carriers have cited the benefits of using software to automate network functions (see 1506030021) and said 5G could start to hit the U.S. next decade.