Howard Buskirk

The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) urged that the administration balance the interests of wireless carriers and DOD in a letter the group approved at a virtual meeting Wednesday. The letter raises concerns about the congressionally mandated Emerging Mid-Band Radar Spectrum Sharing Feasibility Assessment (EMBRSS) study of the lower 3 GHz band (see 2309280087). Moreover, it says federal use of spectrum must change. Industry officials note the missive is unusual in that NSTAC rarely weighs in on spectrum issues. NSTAC members approved the letter, addressed to President Joe Biden, on a unanimous vote with little discussion.

The recently concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was the largest show since 2019, with 5G and AI dominating discussions, panelists said Thursday during a TelecomTV webinar. “The show was all about AI,” said Sandeep Phadke, senior vice president at tech provider Tech Mahindra. The show was also “very grounded,” he added. “It was about how, do I make sure that, from a telecom operator’s standpoint, we are able to address the costs to serve customers, the time to market, and where do we get the new set of revenues?” he said. Carriers are “starting to position” themselves on how they will bring their customers AI, which is “an important turning point,” said Andrew Border, head-product for telco solutions at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Carriers potentially have a “massive advantage" in AI because of "their globally deployed networks,” he said: “You don’t want to be pulling this AI data all back centrally.” The show also demonstrated that the wireless industry is “coming back really strongly,” he said. “There was a lot of AI -- you could not escape AI,” said Salman Tariq, vice president-sales at software provider Optiva. Every tech player had AI as a theme, he said. There was “a good mix of AI fantasy versus real use cases,” he added. “We are now starting to talk about real-life challenges of AI,” Tariq said. MWC is transforming from a “core telecom” show to a tech show, Tariq said. “You could see a lot of adjacent industries coming in and using telco as a platform to build solutions, to add value in their ecosystems,” he said. AI was “omnipresent,” mentioned in every discussion and spread throughout the show floor, said David Boswarthick, director-new technologies at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. How AI is defined “wasn’t too clear,” he noted. Most of the AI presentations didn’t focus on how carriers are using the technology, he said. But most other discussions were ”very grounded,” Boswarthick said. The focus was on what 5G is doing now and how we can get value now, what customers need, he said. “It was a very now event, as opposed to a more future-looking event.” AI is “finally” emerging as a “significant technology trend,” said Paul Miller, chief technology officer at open radio access network company Wind River. “We’re early in the adoption curve” for AI, he said. His company is deploying AI as part of ORAN, which can save providers money, he said. The meeting saw packed, standing-room only crowds for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. “It was a very, very hot show,” he said. The “AI World Congress” should replace MWC as the show's name, said Francis Haysom, principal analyst at Appledore Research. While "there is, obviously, a degree of hype there,” some discussions focused on “AI as an enabler of automation in networks,” he said.

The FirstNet Authority is asking AT&T for a full report on the Feb. 22 outage that cut off service on much of the carrier’s wireless network (see 2402220058), officials said Wednesday during a meeting of the authority's board. FirstNet CEO Joe Wassel said last week the authority was looking at how to prevent similar outages (see 2402290055). AT&T “took immediate action” to prioritize and restore service to public safety agencies on the FirstNet network and most were back online early that morning, hours before service was reestablished for some commercial customers, said Richard Carrizzo, authority chair. FirstNet is asking AT&T to submit an “after-action report” under its contract with the authority “to assess the root cause of the outage,” said Vice Chair Renee Gordon. “We understand the importance of this and will continue to hold AT&T accountable,” she said. “We have a very serious mission, and we take our mission very seriously,” Wassel said Wednesday. The outage impacted first responders “and for that … we are very sorry,” he said. The authority will work closely with AT&T to identify the cause “and implement strategies for corrective actions to prevent an outage like this in the future,” he said. The authority’s emphasis is on rapidly addressing problems and communicating quickly with first responders, he said. In telecom “outages are unavoidable” but we “can lessen the blow by planning and preparing,” he said. The outage was “a powerful reminder, and an important reminder, that there’s always more to be done,” Wassel said. Brian Crawford, chair of the Finance and Investment Committee, reported on an announcement last month that AT&T and FirstNet plan strategic investments of more than $8 billion over 10 years in the public safety network (see 2402130060). “This is a significant next step in the lifecycle of FirstNet” and “will ensure the network keeps pace with advances in technology,” Crawford said. The board convened in Honolulu and members and authority staff met this week with Hawaiian authorities to discuss lessons from last year’s fires in Maui (see 2308110064), officials said. This was the board’s first quarterly meeting outside the continental U.S., Wassel said.

T-Mobile will light up “over the next few days” part of the 2.5 GHz spectrum it won in the 2022 auction after the FCC said the licenses are being released (see 2402270084). Turning on the 2.5 GHz spectrum followed the carrier's multiyear push and required an act of Congress (see 2312190089). T-Mobile plans to auction 800 MHz licenses committed to Dish Wireless after cash-constrained EchoStar decided not to buy the spectrum (see 2403010041), T-Mobile executives said Tuesday at a financial conference.

Verizon remains enthusiastic about its choice to invest heavily in C-band spectrum during the 2021 auction, Joe Russo, president-global networks and technology, said at the Scotiabank financial conference Tuesday. Verizon went big in the C-band auction, bidding $45.4 billion, plus $8 billion in incentive costs to satellite operators (see 2102250046). C-band has “great propagation characteristics,” Russo said. “And the usage of that C-band spectrum has just been exploding as more and more customers get access to it and more and more customers buy our premium plans with premium devices.” C-band also gives Verizon the capacity to offer fixed wireless access, he said. Russo said FWA requires “really good modeling around RF propagation” and “really great capacity management capabilities.” Verizon has focused on both. Moreover, its mobile network remains Verizon's top priority, with FWA possible where it has excess capacity, he said. The average 160 MHz of C-band Verizon has in each market gives the carrier lots of capacity, he said. Russo noted its FWA product offers 300 Mbps service. “When we look at even peak volumes that come out of a consumer's home, even the biggest homes with streaming and gaming and all these kinds of things, customers are using far less than that,” he said. Peak demands for top tier fiber and FWA customers average 100 Mbps or less, he said. Verizon now has more than 3 million FWA customers, with a goal of 5 million-6 million by the end of next year, which means about 350,000 adds per quarter, Russo said. “We're well ahead of that pace.”

NTIA is facing increasing pressure from carriers for additional spectrum for full-power licensed use, and from interests favoring a more open-ended approach, especially in the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, as the agency finalizes an implementation plan for the national spectrum strategy, due for release March 14. DOD is defending its systems in the bands targeted by carriers. Meanwhile, there are questions about how much longer Scott Harris, NTIA senior spectrum adviser, will remain at the agency after the implementation plan is released, industry officials told us.

AT&T is collaborating with the FCC and other regulators in the wake of the recent widespread wireless network outage (see 2402220058), AT&T Chief Operating Officer Jeff McElfresh said during a Morgan Stanley financial conference Monday. McElfresh also confirmed that the loss of affordable connectivity program (ACP) funding won’t be a major financial hit for the carrier, while AT&T is poised to gain connections through the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.

It's unclear how much the FCC’s enhanced competition incentive program (ECIP) will influence the way industry does business, experts said. Commissioners approved ECIP in the summer of 2022. It's officially live as of last month (see 2402150043).

NTIA asked the FCC to harmonize rules for the 24 GHz band with decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019. The FCC approved an NPRM 3-2 in December examining changes to the rules, over dissents by Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington (see 2312260043). Reactions have been mixed (see 2402280037). NTIA filed joint comments, posted Thursday in docket 21-186, with NOAA and NASA. The NPRM proposes “an important step to honor our country’s international commitments,” they said. The NPRM “astutely explains” that passive satellite sensors operated by the federal government on frequencies allocated to the earth exploration satellite service “are particularly vulnerable to harmful interference,” the filing said. These passive sensors “are designed to look downward toward Earth and measure the power level of naturally occurring radio emissions from molecules in the atmosphere that occur at specific frequencies. Very sensitive instrumentation is necessary to measure such weak, natural signals.” NTIA said NOAA wants the FCC to apply the Resolution 750 limits to fixed services in the band and not just to international mobile telecommunications, “noting it is unaware of any technical justification for applying different emission limits to fixed systems.” That latter point was opposed by industry. The limits should apply to only mobile base stations and handsets and not other operations the rules allow, including point-to-point operations, point-to-multipoint operations and transportable devices like fixed wireless access customer premises equipment, Qualcomm said. “The Commission distinguishes these types of operations in its Part 30 rules, particularly when it comes to emissions limits,” Qualcomm said: “NTIA’s request to apply Resolution 750 to fixed operations is outside the scope of and inconsistent with the FCC’s longstanding regulatory framework.” Ericsson supported the WRC-19 limits but urged an exemption for indoor small cells “given the interference protection factors inherent in indoor operations and the unnecessary costs the limits would impose on the development and deployment of those systems.” CTIA said the FCC should adopt the WRC-19 recommendations but go no further. The group noted that companies invested $2 billion to buy licenses in the 24 GHz auction. “Beyond the FCC’s already balanced approach, the emission limits adopted by WRC-19 go above and beyond what is necessary to protect passive satellite operations,” CTIA said. “Any suggestions to expand emission limits beyond the WRC-19 agreement would be unnecessary and cause substantial harm to 24 GHz licensees,” the group said. “To avoid undermining licensees’ investment-backed expectations in acquiring 24 GHz band licenses, the Commission should reject proposals that would go beyond implementing the consensus-based decisions made at WRC-19,” T-Mobile agreed.

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance, Anterix and electric utilities are urging the FCC to take the next step in the 900 MHz band and launch a rulemaking on authorizing 5/5 MHz broadband deployments in the band. Utilities are the primary users of the spectrum.