T-Mobile Suggests Technical Tweaks to Proposed 5G Fund
T-Mobile representatives laid out the company’s position on the proposed 5G Fund, proposing to FCC staff tweaks to the technical rules. “T-Mobile discussed the eligible areas for the 5G Fund Auction and how to reach areas that lack 100% coverage…
and contain roads and/or broadband serviceable locations,” according to a filing posted Friday in docket 20-32. T-Mobile noted that the FCC’s broadband data collection is based on 100-meter-by-100-meter square pixels, or hex-9 cells. “Using more granular hexagonal cells for the 5G Fund, such as hex-10 or hex-11 cells, may help mitigate the issue but would likely introduce more complexity into the mapping process,” T-Mobile said: “A smaller hexagonal cell would require higher resolution terrain and clutter maps that are not readily available. It would also dramatically increase the size of the data files and computer processing requirements for both the submitting carriers and the FCC in a way that is unachievable.” T-Mobile met with staff from the Wireless Bureau, Office of Economics and Analytics and Office of Engineering & Technology. Commissioners approved a Further NPRM on the fund in September (see 2309210035|).