Howard Buskirk

AT&T acknowledged Thursday it suffered extensive outages on its wireless network, including the ability of customers to call 911. The FCC is investigating.

Fixed wireless customers are the happiest broadband customers in the U.S., according to a recent survey, Recon Analytics' Roger Entner said Wednesday during a Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy webcast. Entner said U.S. carriers probably have the spectrum holdings they need to keep up with demand for fixed offerings. Entner’s comments were based on a recent proprietary Recon Analytics survey of more than 250,000 consumers in the U.S.

The use of quantum computing is emerging as a threat to public key infrastructure technology and other methods of encryption used to protect data on the internet, speakers said Tuesday during a Mobile World Live webinar. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a long-standing project, launched in 2016, to develop post-quantum encryption standards.

An FCC order and Further NPRM on robocalls and robotexts and an order allowing use of wireless multichannel audio systems (WMAS) included a number of changes over the draft versions, based on side-by-side comparisons. Commissioners approved them 5-0 Thursday (see 2402150053 and 2402150037). In an apparent win for carriers, the FCC changed parts of the robocall/robotext FNPRM, opening the door to a pivot away from a mandate.

FCC commissioners unanimously approved an order allowing wireless multichannel audio system (WMAS) use, a technology of special interest to wireless mic companies and users. The vote came Thursday during the commissioners' open meeting. Agency officials said the order was tweaked to address broadcasters' concerns, but power levels proposed in the draft order weren’t changed.

Delegates to the World Radiocommunication Conference last year dealt with a slew of proposed future agenda items for WRC 2027, Michael Mullinix, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, said during a panel discussion at an FCBA webinar Wednesday (see 2402140051). Similarly, an unusually large number of items on the 2023 agenda remained from 2019, Mullinix said. The U.S. delegation offered a “whopping” 18 proposals for the 2027 agenda; more than 40 proposals came from other regions, he said. “That’s a lot of proposals, and more importantly, a lot of priorities for each country that submitted them,” he said. The goal is narrowing the focus to a “manageable” 15 to 18 topics during the four-year study period, Mullinix said. “The work is already underway toward WRC-27 decisions today,” he said. It’s already clear that the biggest focus of the U.S. in 2027 will be making more mid-band spectrum available for full-power licensed use, he said. Recent studies suggest U.S. wireless networks will “fall short” of meeting expected demand “absent new spectrum access,” he said. Mullinix said 7/8 GHz, which will get further study under the administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2402090059), is “now the global harmonization target for expanding capacity for 5G and beyond.” Spectrum policy is critical to ensuring that trusted equipment suppliers have “the global economies of scale needed to compete, and don’t have to develop unique equipment just for the U.S. market,” he said. HWG’s Tricia Paoletta said it’s also clear the U.S. will continue pressure at the next WRC to protect the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi and unlicensed use. “The U.S. is also the global leader in the Wi-Fi ecosystem,” which next year is expected to be worth $5 trillion, she said. U.S. companies “hold the vast majority of intellectual property rights … so it’s a very critical area for the United States’ economy too,” she said. Chinese operators, led by Huawei, will continue pressuring other countries to allocate the 6 GHz band for international mobile telecommunications, Paoletta said. Hogan Lovells’ George John noted that 7/8 GHz is already used for unlicensed operations, earth exploration and space research. It's important because the amount of space research services spectrum available is limited, he said. All the bands to be studied for licensed use will present complications for policymakers, John predicted. U.S. leadership in 5G and 6G is “super important,” but “we also need to love the incumbents,” he said.

One of the big surprises from the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai, which ended in December, was the role that fear played in many of the negotiations, Charles Glass, chief of the International Spectrum Policy Division in NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management, said during an FCBA webinar Wednesday.

Public interest and consumer groups urged the FCC take a more aggressive stance on a November Further NPRM about protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud (see 2311150042). CTIA said the commission should “pursue a flexible and risk-based approach” toward customer account security and fraud deterrence. Reply comments were due this week in docket 21-341, and they largely mirror initial comments (see 2401180053).

Industry is calling on the FCC to revise a robocall item, set for a commissioner vote Thursday, which codifies some robocall and robotexting rules while asking about applying protections in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to communications from wireless carriers to their own subscribers (see 2401250068). Industry officials told us they’re not certain the FCC will make the changes they seek, though they expect tweaks.

The FirstNet Authority and AT&T announced a commitment Tuesday for strategic investments of more than $8 billion over 10 years in the public safety network. AT&T also said it's launching a stand-alone 5G core that will improve 5G functionality “with specific public safety features” and will transition FirstNet’s Band 14 spectrum from 4G to 5G. The authority and AT&T made the announcement at a fire station in Fairfax County, Virginia. They also announced that starting in March, first responders will have “always-on priority and preemption” across all of AT&T’s spectrum and that the network will add 1,000 sites within the next two years. FirstNet said it will expand mission-critical services to include voice, video, data, and location “to complement public safety’s localized, voice-only radio systems with reliable, wireless connectivity.” FirstNet is also upgrading its fleet of deployables with 5G connectivity. FirstNet now covers more first responders than any network and is involved in every major disaster and event in the U.S., said Jim Bugel, AT&T president-FirstNet. “Delivering a stand-alone 5G core will be a game changer,” he said. After 9/11, it took days to establish communications between different agencies at the Pentagon crash site, said William Johnson, now police chief at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and Arlington National Cemetery. Johnson was a first responder at the Pentagon on 9/11. “Because of the events that day, when I became a police chief … I knew I had to establish communications as our number one priority,” he said. FirstNet “plays a pivotal role” by “providing a secure, reliable, prioritized communications platform,” he said. It is “the nation’s only, and I’m going to repeat, only, public safety broadband network,” said FirstNet Authority Board Chair Richard Carrizzo during the event. “We’re here to launch the next phase of our network,” he added. “Today is a big day -- we’re leaning into the future,” said FirstNet board Vice Chair Renee Gordon. The need for first responders to have “situational awareness comes up daily” at every firehouse, said Fairfax County Fire Chief John Butler. AT&T last month said FirstNet connections hit more than 5.5 million across some 27,500 agencies (see 2401240067).