AT&T and Verizon's Cellco Partnership were by far top recipients of C-band flexible use overlay licenses in Auction 107. Per our breakdown of an FCC Wireless Bureau public notice Friday, Verizon received 3,518 licenses and AT&T 1,620. Others included U.S. Cellular with 253 licenses, T-Mobile (141) and Canopy Spectrum (83). Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel called the licenses "the sweet spot for 5G deployment [due to] the right mix of capacity and propagation that will help us reach more people in more places faster. With these licenses in hand, more carriers can deploy mid-band 5G." The C-band auction was approved under former Chairman Ajit Pai and was “no walk in the park,” Commissioner Brendan Carr said Monday. “We must do more than implement the tough spectrum decisions the FCC made over the last few years if we are going to extend U.S. leadership in 5G,” he said: “We must move forward with a number of new spectrum proceedings too.”

New York will continue defending its broadband affordability law, with a pact between the state attorney general and ISP plaintiffs a procedural step on the way to appeal, said an AG office spokesperson Friday. New York reserved appeal rights while agreeing not to enforce its law, in the agreement with ISP associations including the New York State Telecommunications Association (NYSTA), USTelecom and CTIA. See our bulletin. “The parties have conferred and agree that the Court’s holdings on preemption” in its June 11 preliminary injunction order “resolve the substantive legal issues in this matter and render the entry of final judgment appropriate,” said the stipulated final judgment (in Pacer). New York reserves the right to appeal the stipulated final judgment, declaration and permanent injunction, it said. “Defendant expressly reserves all appellate rights in this matter.” Assistant AG Patricia Hingerton asked (in Pacer) Judge Denis Hurley to order the proposed stipulation be filed by the parties Friday in case 2:21-cv-02389 at U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York. Hurley ruled last month that ISPs would likely succeed on conflict and field preemption arguments, and granted the motion for preliminary injunction by NYSTA, CTIA, ACA Connects, USTelecom, NTCA and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (see 2106110064). New York appealed June 30 to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2106300071). “It looks like the parties agreed to take steps to move the appeals process forward,” emailed New York Public Utility Law Project Executive Director Richard Berkley. “This case would never have ended after a decision by the trial court; it was always going to be appealed. So this would save the time of having to fight it out in the lower court, then start moving it up the appeals courts' ladder.” ISP groups declined to comment.

AT&T added nearly 800,000 postpaid phone subscribers in Q2, it reported Thursday, joining Verizon in adding them amid continuing competition from T-Mobile (see 2107210054). AT&T also beat profit estimates and grew HBO Max. CEO John Stankey told analysts AT&T's spinoff of WarnerMedia, combining it with Discovery (see 2105160003), is in early stages. “No news is good news,” he said: “It's a lot of work with the regulatory agencies and document production and providing information that's responsive to their requests so that they can begin the reviews.” Executives said the wireless adds were the most for any Q2 in the past 10 years. AT&T added 1.16 million wireless customers, compared with some analyst estimates of 300,000 and 2.8 million total domestic HBO Max and HBO subscribers. Postpaid churn was 0.87% vs. 1.05% in the year-ago quarter. “Gross adds are up, churn is at record low levels and our average promotional spend per net add is significantly lower than a year ago,” said Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches. COVID-19 drove down results a year ago, Desroches said. “While the pandemic is still having some impact on our results, we're seeing our businesses emerge stronger than before.” AT&T’s $5 billion, 10-year deal with Dish Network (see 2107190003) will be good for both companies, Stankey said: “When somebody is going to be successful, it’s always nice for us to be successful along with them.” Profit was $1.9 billion, up from $1.6 billion a year ago. Revenue was $44 billion, up from $41 billion. The AT&T and Verizon results raise some questions, New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors. “Low churn at AT&T and Verizon ought to result in slower growth for the share gainers (T-Mobile; Cable); however, the strong growth in Wholesale revenue at Verizon suggests strong adds at Cable, and we suspect T-Mobile will do just fine also,” he said: “We still need to untangle the mystery of too much growth in US wireless.” Results were “inarguably very strong,” said MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett. “Solid growth comes with the asterisk of extreme promotionality that is still suppressing” earnings and growth is “lagging well behind Verizon’s, despite much faster unit growth,” he said.

CTA President Gary Shapiro doesn’t lose sleep over "innovation taking over the world or robotics replacing human masses,” he told C-SPAN’s The Communicators, to be televised this weekend. “I worry every day that our government is going to choke off new avenues of innovation” through antitrust crackdowns on Big Tech, he said. “Look what we did during COVID. Look how the tech industry basically saved, in a sense, the white-collar environment for those lucky enough to work at home and fundamentally changed the world.” Shapiro can live with some of the six antitrust bills that cleared the House Judiciary Committee last month (see 2106230063), he said. “It’s reasonable to look at merger filing fees, as long as they’re not discouraging mergers,” he said. “The government should have a shot” to review transactions “on an objective basis, but it should be time-constrained so it’s not sitting around there for two or three years.” Other measures, including shifting the burden of proof on purchases or giving states more leeway in antitrust reviews, “I just don’t understand,” he said. “I think you’re going to see consumers so upset when they figure out that their politicians are trying to screw up the things they love. I mean, consumers love these services.” There’s “no question” that some things Huawei has done to become “a force around the world” involved intellectual property theft from American companies, which “I find pretty difficult to swallow,” he said. “We lost some revenue” due to Commerce Department export restrictions on Huawei, “but that’s life,” said Shapiro. “We follow the law.” Huawei didn't comment Thursday. CES will return to Las Vegas as a physical show in early January with “wider aisles” and “very strong participation,” said Shapiro. The show has signed on 1,000 exhibitors so far, he said. CES 2020, CTA’s last in-person Las Vegas show, drew 4,400 exhibitors. As “great” as CES 2021 was as a virtual show, Shapiro said, “we have all learned that it’s not the same as being there.”

Use of Copyright Act Section 119 distant signal compulsory licenses letting direct broadcast satellite operators import distant local TV broadcast signals without negotiating with those stations has plummeted since passage of the Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act (STCPPA) of 2019, but that decline seems to reflect the overall decline in DBS subscribership, Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter said in a June 21 letter to House and Senate Appropriations committees leadership released Wednesday. It said cord cutting and a decline in use of the license also seems to come from a concentration of broadcast channel owners, resulting in possibly more difficulty in negotiating retransmission licenses. A CO study of Section 119 licenses post-STCPPA said the annual satellite royalty receipts from the licenses peaked in 2010 at more than $96 million, and by 2019 were down to about $8.7 million. Royalty receipts dropped more than 50% in 2020 to about $4.3 million, it said. Now only Dish Network is eligible to carry the Section 119 licenses, since AT&T's DirecTV hasn't negotiated license agreements to provide local-into-local network service in 12 of 210 designated market areas and use of the license is contingent on providing such service in all 210, Perlmutter reported. Given factors outside 119 affecting DBS, effects of STCPPA on that market "cannot yet be determined," CO said.

Amazon again supplanted Facebook in Q2 as top lobbying spender in tech and telecom, with NCTA and Comcast rounding out the top four. Huawei, Twitter, the Information Technology Industry Council and Telecommunications Industry Association had the sectors' largest percentage increases compared with the same period last year. Broadcom, BSA|The Software Alliance and the Computer and Communications Industry Association had large decreases. Amazon spent $4.86 million in Q2, up almost 11%. Facebook paid $4.77 million, down 1%. NCTA disbursed $3.26 million, down more than 10%. Comcast spent $3.25 million, down almost 11%. AT&T spent just over $3 million, down more than 10%. Verizon expended $2.76 million, up almost 9%. Charter Communications was little changed at $2.57 million, and CTIA at $2.5 million was also flat. Microsoft spent $2.47 million, a 15% decrease. T-Mobile spent $2.4 million, down 8%. NAB fell 5% to $2.18 million. Qualcomm gained 8% to $2.13 million. Google reported $2 million, a more than 23% increase. Apple had $1.64 million, an almost 11% increase. ViacomCBS paid $1.6 million, up 39%. Dell's $1.12 million was a 23% increase. Huawei spent just over $1 million, a 523% increase. IBM was $980,000, down more than 5%. Disney spent $830,000, down more than 6%. Cox's $810,000 was down almost 13%. Twitter spent $660,000, a 69% increase. ITI spent $600,000, rising 43%. USTelecom was relatively unchanged at $570,000. Lumen had $520,000, an almost 9% increase. The Internet Association disclosed $390,000, up more than 14%. Broadcom posted $360,000, down 40%. BSA was $290,000, down almost 31%. ACA Connects was level at $160,000. NTCA also spent $160,000, an 11% decrease. ICANN spent $85,000, similar to Q2 2020. TIA spent $70,000, a 40% increase. CCIA's $30,000 was down 25%.

The final episode of C-SPAN’s The Communicators will be a roundtable of reporters discussing “tech issues and the future of tech,” a C-SPAN spokesperson emailed. The episode is planned for July 31. C-SPAN didn’t comment on which reporters will participate. The network announced the end of the show’s nearly 800-episode run earlier this month (see 2107020051).

State emergency alert system plans must be filed in the alert reporting system and in compliance with updated FCC requirements by July 5, said the Public Safety Bureau in a public notice posted in docket 15-94 Tuesday.

Dish Network's mobile customers will use AT&T's wireless network in addition to Dish's 5G network under a network services agreement announced by the two companies Monday. The agreement says AT&T will be the primary network services partner for Dish mobile virtual network operator customers. They said AT&T will also provide transport and roaming services to support Dish's 5G network. "Teaming with AT&T on this long-term partnership will allow us to better compete in the retail wireless market and quickly respond to changes in our customers' evolving connectivity needs as we build our own first-of-its kind 5G network," said Dish Chief Operating Officer and Group President-Retail Wireless John Swieringa. Under the terms of the 10-year NSA, Dish will pay AT&T at least $5 billion and AT&T can deploy portions of Dish's spectrum to support Dish customers on the AT&T network. New Street Research's Jonathan Chaplin, in a note to investors, said presumably AT&T would pay Dish for use of the spectrum or Dish would get a reduction in what it's paying AT&T under the MVNO. He said the deal was likely driven by Dish's issues with T-Mobile shutting down the Sprint CDMA network that many of Dish's Boost customers rely on. Chaplin said the Dish/AT&T deal could indicate a DirecTV/Dish DBS deal could be more plausible since it indicates a willingness for AT&T and Dish to work together. He said such an agreement would face regulatory challenges "though we see it as a hurdle; not a barrier."

5G has a role to play in infrastructure and closing the digital divide, FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said on an Axios webinar Friday, as Congress debates whether wireless will be a major part of infrastructure spending plans (see 2107150046). Much of the discussion has been on extending the reach of fiber networks, Rosenworcel said. “We really need to have robust connections to those towers … to make sure our wireless networks can deliver all that 5G has to offer.” About 50 million Americans are on 5G , Rosenworcel said. She noted the importance of 5G to IoT. Next-generation machine learning and artificial intelligence are “where the real 5G revolution comes,” she said. Rosenworcel said the FCC “made a mistake” last administration putting too much emphasis on high-band spectrum, repeating a criticism she made as a minority commissioner. Millimeter-wave 5G requires “lots of ground-based facilities,” which are “really costly” to deploy, she said. Mid-band is “the sweet spot” and “how we’re going to deploy 5G,” she said. “We’re doing a lot to fix where we were.” The FCC started the C-band auction, the first mid-band auction for 5G, under former Chairman Ajit Pai (see 2012080040). "The last FCC took unprecedented action to advance American leadership in 5G,” Pai emailed now. “A key part of that plan was freeing up spectrum for the commercial marketplace,” he said, noting the citizens broadband radio service and C-band auction. “Notably, today's leadership voted against each and every one of these measures,” he said: “The agency is now going backward on mid-band by putting on ice the 2.5 GHz auction and the 4.9 GHz initiative." Commissioner Brendan Carr "is proud that he voted in favor of freeing up more than six gigahertz of spectrum for licensed 5G services," a spokesperson emailed: “There is work ahead if this Commission is going to match the pace and cadence it hit with mid-band spectrum over the past few years.” Rosenworcel says the 2.5 GHz auction would come following the 3.45 GHz auction. Mid-band means more 5G outside urban centers, she said now. "That future is not quite here yet.” Broadband is becoming “critical infrastructure,” said Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Governments “should care,” he said. “I have not met a single government that does not worry about how they can build 5G and how fast.” Amon also noted the debate in Congress: “For the first time, you have a cellular technology that can really replace, or augment, fiber deployment,” which will be easier to build in rural areas. Amon predicted most major U.S. cities will have 5G in 2021, and it will cover the “majority of the country” by Dec. 31, 2022. Most Manufacturing Institute members report they hope to use 5G in their plants by year's end, said Executive Director Carolyn Lee: “They also recognize that the speed with which 5G is deployed will really impact their ability to be globally competitive.”