Howard Buskirk

Supporters of opening the lower 12 GHz band for fixed wireless use remain hopeful about a favorable FCC decision. That's despite the opposition from SpaceX and the major role its CEO, Elon Musk, is now playing ahead of the start of the second Trump presidency. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the agency, has said repeatedly he will follow the guidance of FCC engineers about the band's future (see 2207140053).

The extent to which the U.S. Supreme Court decides the USF challenge on theoretical rather than practical grounds could have major implications for whether the court issues a decision that overturns the program's funding mechanism. The court said last week it will hear a challenge to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-7 en banc decision, which found the USF contribution factor is a "misbegotten tax.” Consumers' Research challenged the contribution factor in the 5th Circuit and other courts.

The FCC's 3-2 April decision (see 2404290044) fining T-Mobile for allegedly not safeguarding data on customers' real-time locations should be overturned, the carrier said in a brief filed Monday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “The FCC concluded that essentially the entire wireless industry had violated the law by continuing to operate location-based service (LBS) programs” based on actions by a “single, rogue actor” who “misused those programs,” T-Mobile said in docket 24-1224. T-Mobile was assessed the largest fine of the major carriers, more than $91 million, plus $12 million for Sprint's violations, which it subsequently acquired. Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington dissented, even though the FCC four years ago, under Republican Chair Ajit Pai, approved the initial notice of apparent liability. T-Mobile noted that it and Sprint ended their LBS programs months after reports of potential abuse surfaced. Moreover, it argued that the FCC lacks authority over LBS data under the Communications Act: “The FCC based its retroactive punishment on an utterly novel construction of the governing statute, holding, for the first time, that the mobile-device-location information used in those LBS programs was ‘customer proprietary network information" (CPNI). T-Mobile said the “FCC’s unilateral imposition of tens of millions of dollars in civil penalties violates the Companies’ jury-trial rights under the Seventh Amendment and Article III.” It cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, which questioned administrative penalties handed down absent a jury trial (see 2406270063). The fines also violate principles of fair notice, the brief said. “The FCC adopted its broad view of CPNI for the first time in these enforcement proceedings, after the conduct had already occurred.” The FCC’s “hindsight-based liability findings” are also “arbitrary and capricious,” the provider said. “Among other safeguards, the Companies limited the number of entities with direct access to device-location information, ensured that LBS providers were vetted before allowing them to participate in the LBS programs, and required express customer consent before sharing device-location information.” The government is scheduled to respond Dec. 26. Verizon challenged the FCC’s fine in the 2nd Circuit, AT&T in the 5th Circuit (see 2411060008).

The federal government defended the FCC’s decision denying petitions for declaratory ruling on the agency’s over-the-air reception device (OTARD) rules in response to Indian Peak Properties' challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2405060035). The FCC declined to step in following a dispute between the company and Rancho Palos Verdes, California (see 2410290011). “The Commission correctly construed the Rule to require a regular human presence at an antenna’s location,” the government said. “This requirement is evident from the Rule’s text and the Commission’s historic treatment of the Rule, and is consistent with Congress’s original purpose of protecting viewers’ access to video programming.” The pleading discussed the dispute's long history. After a city inspection revealed at least 11 antennas on the property in question, “plus other equipment on the roof, the City ordered Indian Peak to remove all but five antennas, and the parties began several years of discussions,” the pleading said, noting that in 2020, after suing the city, Indian Peak sought FCC review. The pleading said the commission’s determination “that Indian Peak failed to adequately allege that its antenna use fell within the Rule’s scope was supported by substantial evidence: Indian Peak repeatedly told the Commission that no one lived at the Property, emphasized the importance of remote access, and offered vague and inconsistent descriptions of how the Property was used.” From its origins protecting viewers’ access to satellite video at their homes, the OTARD rule “has always contemplated that a protected antenna serve a human end user at the antenna’s location,” the government said. “Indeed, if the Rule did not contain a human-presence requirement, it would necessarily extend to antennas on unoccupied buildings -- a result which nothing in the Rule’s history supports.”

In an investors' note Monday, New Street’s Blair Levin discussed reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-7 en banc decision, which found the USF contribution factor is a "misbegotten tax.” Consumers' Research, a conservative group, challenged the contribution factor in the 5th Circuit and other courts.

An order the FCC released late Thursday about 5.9 GHz rules largely omitted use of the band for Wi-Fi, despite pleas of unlicensed advocates (see 2407220015). The long-awaited order focuses instead almost exclusively on final rules for cellular-vehicle-to-everything technology in the band (see 2411210054).

GSMA Intelligence expects trends in 5G growth and wide variations among the regions of the world will continue through the start of 6G in 2030, Emanuel Kolta, lead analyst-network sustainability and innovation, said Thursday. Kolta spoke during a Mobile World Live webinar. 5G isn’t new; the first commercial network launched in 2019, Kolta noted. “We have enough information to have some level of understanding about 5G and how the market, how users reacted to the launch,” he said. GMSA finds 75% of consumers say they’re happy with their 5G networks and satisfaction levels are growing, he said. In addition, it notes about a third are interested in fixed wireless access, which is a leading use case in many markets. The group also found that how 5G is deployed varies more by region than in earlier generations. He cited Southeast Asia as an example, where, more than in other regions, 5G connects “things” rather than just people. In countries with limited fiber penetration, including the U.S., the U.K. and South Africa, “FWA is a success story.” Regional differences will continue, he predicted. By GSMA’s latest count, 265 operators in 114 markets have launched 5G. By the end of the year, 5G connections are expected to reach 2 billion worldwide, “which is an enormous number,” and climb to 5.6 billion in 2030. After a period when the design and technology built into phones “kind of stalled,” consumers expect the next generations of phones to offer innovations, he said. “We also see some risks, such as the drop in smartphone sales in recent years” and the potential for geopolitical conflicts and other problems to cause supply chain issues. “We expect that consumer enthusiasm will continue,” he said: “We expect that North America will lead in terms of 5G penetration” with 90% penetration and 460 million connections by 2030. GSMA also sees data traffic continuing to grow at 30% annually. “There was some discussion around it slowing down, but bigger screens and better cameras continue to increase data traffic,” as does the growth of the IoT. GSMA believes 2G and 3G will still be used in five years, even though 5G has grown more quickly than any generation of wireless, he said. 4G networks will also continue to see broad use, though less than today.

The current technology market is easy to characterize, Mark Bagley, managing director at Woodside Capital Partners, said during a Wireless Communications Association webinar Thursday. “What’s hot” is AI and generative AI “and what isn’t hot is whatever is not gen-AI -- that’s where we are at this stage.” The wireless sector is becoming more interesting for investors, partly because of SpaceX’s push to put more satellites into low earth orbit, offering satellite broadband with much lower latency than the two or three seconds users experienced in the past, he said. The latency and bandwidth from satellites means a service that offers more than just data, “which is what we thought it was going to be.” Venture capitalists are also interested in federal programs like BEAD and are investing, Bagley said. Carrier assumptions about 5G were wrong, he said: “They expected that everyone would be using continuously” 200 Mbps “or some ridiculous amount. That has not been the case.” Henry Huang, investment director at Micron Ventures, said he’s not very interested in investing in 5G. “If there’s anything related to wireless that’s interesting it’s going to be in the sky,” Huang said. “LEO is a big thing.” One big change for satellite is a tenfold reduction in launch costs, he noted. “You are able to launch a smaller satellite at a lower altitude and those satellites are much cheaper than the previous ones” and use “off-the-shelf components." SpaceX’s Starlink “is obviously the leader here, but there are a bunch of startups coming up.” The challenge will be trying to compete with the big players like Starlink and Amazon's Kuiper, but some smaller players will likely benefit from federal spending programs or may target the IoT rather than broadband consumers, he said. Huang mentioned he predicted three years ago that millimeter-wave frequencies would be increasingly important for U.S. carriers, but he was wrong. “If there is spectrum available at lower frequencies, then its propagation characteristics are just way better” and it doesn’t make sense to use mmW in satellite or terrestrial networks. High-band could still “take off” but that will take a long time because deployment costs are so high. There “could be opportunities in 5G, but it’s going to be in some large, emerging economies, for example, India.” Said Laura Swan, managing partner at Silicon Catalyst Ventures, five years ago investors got into 5G and that market remains slow. “How do we get data from the satellites?” For a country like India, the cost of fiber deployment is “too high” and fixed wireless access offers an alternative. “We have started to see" an opportunity in FWA, “but as we have seen with all 5G, is it actually going to take hold?” Lisa Oshima, managing consultant at Socialize Mobilize, said, the “really flashy stuff,” like launching satellites, is “always sexy and cool.” Getting data speeds on the ground “is really complicated.” Yet it seems "like some of the boring tech … is actually becoming important to the way the world is evolving.”

Open radio access network deployments could soon reach an important stage as open networks mature, experts said Thursday during an Informa Tech webinar. Speakers agreed that further work remains before ORAN is deployed by operators worldwide.

John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, said Wednesday his organization is willing to work with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and other Republicans to save a program that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. On tap to lead the FCC next year under President-elect Donald Trump, Carr voted against the E-rate program's creation, as did fellow Republican Nathan Simington (see 2410070028).