The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction ended Monday, after 73 rounds, hitting net proceeds of $427.8 million. The FCC found winning bidders for 7,872 of the 8,017 licenses offered. The FCC holds the remaining 145 licenses. “After some extended bidding in Guam today, Auction 108 finally came to an end,” emailed Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer. “While the end of this auction should not be a surprise for those following activity on Friday, it certainly ended faster than I expected just a week ago.” With no assignment phase, Javid predicted the FCC will issue a closing public notice in about a week, with details on where each bidder won licenses. T-Mobile was expected to be the dominant bidder as it fills in gaps in the 2.5 GHz coverage it’s using to offer 5G (see 2207290045). AT&T, Verizon and Dish Network qualified to bid but weren’t expected to make a play for many licenses. New Street significantly downgraded projections for the auction as it unfolded, from $3.4 billion, to less than $452 million in its latest projection. New Street’s Phillip Burnett told investors Sunday Guam Telephone Authority was likely the company making a push for the license there. The authority owns citizens broadband radio service and high-band licenses “but lacks a powerful mid-band license” since “no C-Band or 3.45GHz licenses were offered for Guam,” he said. “We still assume T-Mobile won essentially all the licenses,” Burnett said in a Monday note. The auction translated to just 2 cents/MHz POP, 8 cents excluding the areas where T-Mobile is already operating, he said: “This will make it the cheapest of the 5G upper mid-band auctions at the FCC to date, both in terms of unit and aggregate prices. However, given how odd these licenses were, we wouldn't expect to see the auction used as a marker for mid-band values going forward.”

The FCC needs to take a big swing at receiver standards if it hopes to make any progress, consultant Preston Padden said in a filing posted Wednesday at the FCC. Half measures won’t work, he said. “Our system of spectrum licensing cannot work if entities are licensed for a particular set of frequencies and then the associated industry floods the market with receivers that ‘squat’ over, and preclude the use by others of, a much broader set of frequencies,” Padden said. “Our system of spectrum allocation simply cannot work when, effectively, it is receivers rather than the FCC that are calling the shots,” he said: “The aviation industry still could build altimeters that squat over a vast swath of spectrum licensed to others and still wave the bloody shirt of planes falling from the sky and people dying -- with the outrageous result that licensees who paid the government $82 Billion in good faith cannot fully use their spectrum! And the GPS industry could continue to deploy literally millions of low-cost poorly designed receivers.” The FCC is examining next steps following a recent notice of inquiry (see 2208050044). Padden said he doesn't have a client in the proceeding.

LTD Broadband signaled it will seek FCC reversal of the agency rejecting the company’s long-form application for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support. At a teleconferenced Minnesota Public Utilities Commission prehearing conference Wednesday, LTD outside counsel Andy Carlson of the Taft firm told Administrative Law Judge Jim LaFave the company believes Minnesota's and other pending state reviews “should generally be stayed while the FCC’s decision is appealed by LTD.” Sept. 12 is the deadline for administrative appeal at the FCC, Carlson said. Due to that date, LaFave deferred further scheduling of Minnesota’s proceeding on whether to revoke LTD Broadband’s eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status (see 2207140047) until a Sept. 20 prehearing conference at 2:30 p.m. CDT. LaFave ordered LTD to provide its long-form application, attachments and related FCC correspondence by Friday to the state Commerce Department and attorney general's office, as well as to the Minnesota Telecom Alliance and the Minnesota Rural Electric Association, which petitioned the PUC to revoke LTD’s ETC status. Others may file to intervene in the proceeding by Sept. 16, the ALJ said. Assistant Attorney General Kristin Berkland said the FCC could act in 145 days on an LTD appeal. Carlson said the FCC moves slowly and could take longer than that. LTD CEO Corey Hauer told us earlier this month the company was considering next steps after the FCC’s rejection (see 2208110006).

The FCC's rejection of SpaceX's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction long-form application earlier this month (see 2208100050) shows "clear error and plainly exceeds agency authority," Commissioner Brendan Carr said Wednesday. It "leave[s] families waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide when we have the technology to get them high-speed service today," he said. He said FCC arguments that Starlink uses untested technology "do not bear out" given it has three more years to meet the speed benchmarks and the company is already exceeding them in other countries. He said criticisms about Starlink's pricing ring hollow when the agency provides universal service awards "for far slower internet services that cost customers far more." The commissioner said bringing fiber to the communities Starlink was to cover will likely cost about $3 billion, vs. the $885 million in support that was going to go to SpaceX. Carr said the RDOF decision "plainly exceeds" the scope of the FCC's limited authority to review the 2020 award. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office and SpaceX didn't comment. In a response Wednesday to California Public Utilities Commission Administrative Law Judge Seaneen Wilson, SpaceX said it's still looking at its options for seeking reconsideration or review of the FCC decision. It asked that, despite that uncertainty, the PUC still go forward with granting it a certificate of public convenience and necessity as an eligible telecommunications carrier. The PUC had asked if SpaceX still wanted a CPCN and eligible telecom carrier designation after the RDOF rejection (see 2208230008).

The FirstNet Authority asked for a 10-year extension of the nationwide 700 MHz Band 14 license it received in 2012, which otherwise expires Nov. 15, said a Tuesday notice by the FCC Public Safety Bureau. The application window opened last week (see 2208190057). The bureau accepted the application for filing. “To the extent that the Bureau may need further information as part of the application, the Bureau may ask FirstNet to supplement the renewal application,” the bureau said: “Interested parties may file any views regarding the renewal application as an informal request for Commission action.” Those filings are due Sept. 22 and must “reference DA 22-882.” Oppositions to filings are due Oct. 3, replies Oct. 11, the bureau said.

Amazon underscored safety in a Friday blog post outlining plans for its drone delivery service that's to launch this year in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas (see 2206130024). The electric drones are designed to deliver sub-five-pound packages to customers in under an hour. To ensure safe delivery, the company used aerospace standards for a robust drone design and employed a “sense-and-avoid system” that detects and avoids obstacles in the air and on the ground, such as other aircraft and people and pets in backyards, it said. “Our drone can encounter new, unexpected situations and still make safe decisions -- autonomously and safely,” Amazon said. If the environment changes, and the drone’s mission commands it to come into contact with an object that wasn’t there previously, “it will refuse.” Amazon is creating an automated drone-management system to plan flight paths and ensure safe distances between aircraft and other aircraft in the area “and that we’re complying with all aviation regulations,” it said. The company has been working on the drone delivery technology for over a decade with a team of safety, aerospace, science, robotics, software, hardware, testing and manufacturing experts “to ensure our system meets the rigors required for an aerospace product,” it said. The company tests its drones in private and controlled facilities and has logged thousands of flight hours, putting them through “rigorous testing” and evaluation in accordance with regulatory requirements, it said. In the past two years of testing, Amazon has made over 188 updates to its system, including for noise and equipment ergonomics, it said. Amazon got an FAA part 135 air carrier certificate, giving it authorization to operate as an airline and deliver small packages via drone, it noted. As part of the process, it submitted over 500 safety and efficiency processes that it will use to conduct deliveries later this year in California and Texas, it said.

The combination of connected devices, ubiquitous cloud-based payment systems and audiences accustomed to interactive TV content means technology to allow viewers to shop with their televisions could finally take hold, said panelists at a Stream TV virtual summit Wednesday. Recent changes to privacy rules and Google’s stance against website cookies could mean digital advertisers will be looking for innovative ways to spend their budgets, and “shoppable TV” could be that opportunity, said Evan Moore, NBCUniversal Advertising & Partnerships senior vice president-commerce partnerships. Existing TV shopping offerings primarily use onscreen QR codes for viewers to scan with their phones, but companies are looking to go further, said Carl Fremont, CEO of ad agency Quigley. Viewers of NBCU’s Love Island USA are offered on screen the chance to buy items worn on the show after each episode, said Moore. The ad industry is also looking at AI-based technology that can “ingest” a video and find items comparable to the furniture or the cast’s clothing in a retailer’s inventory and offer it to viewers, Kerv Interactive’s Gary Mittman said. For shoppable TV to work, the actual transaction has to be as frictionless as possible, Mittman said. That can mean using a phone to make the purchase, clicking a button on the remote, or eventually voice commands, he said. “It could be a one-click transaction; the opportunities are broad,” he said.

The North American Numbering Council's number portability industry forum is "working on an issue brought in by Somos" about requested changes to the interface between the number portability administration center and pooling administrator function of the North American numbering plan administrator, said numbering administration oversight working group Co-Chair Philip Linse of Lumen during the group's virtual meeting Monday. It's "not the first delay" on Somos' contract, said iconnectiv Senior Vice President-Corporate and Business Development Chris Drake. "We're universally astounded at the lack of transparency," Drake said, and industry concerns have been "dismissed with a pat on the head." Drake noted iconnectiv also bid for the NANPA that was "more than 50% under" the awarded $80 million Somos received: "I’m confused how our proposal was too risky to select but three years of ongoing delay are of no concern at all." Somos didn't comment.

LTD is "evaluating our next steps" after the FCC rejected its long-form application for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction, CEO Corey Hauer told us (see 2208100050). "We are extremely disappointed in the FCC staff decision," Hauer said: "I don’t believe the FCC fully appreciated the benefits LTD Broadband would bring to hundreds of thousands of rural Americans." New Street’s Blair Levin told investors Thursday there are likely no negative implications for other telecom providers from the order. “For the most part, these funds affect highly rural areas where the major companies are not offering, nor have plans to offer service,” Levin said: “To some extent, it is a positive for the wireless companies, particularly those offering fixed wireless in rural areas, as it takes away a government subsidy for Starlink and others like LTD, though in the case of Starlink, it is likely to offer service in those areas anyway.” Litigation is possible but “this decision makes it easier for Governors awarding Infrastructure Bill funding to target funds to those areas that Starlink and LTD had provisionally won,” he said.

The FCC’s evaluation of future use of the 12 GHz band requires “a complex engineering process that involves analyzing competing technical analyses,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a letter Wednesday to Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla. The agency is “evaluating two potential approaches to future use of the 12 GHz band: increasing terrestrial use of the shared band or continuing with the current framework,” she said: “This will require carefully examining the characteristics of this spectrum band -- including its propagation and capacity characteristics, the nature of in-band and adjacent band incumbent use, and the potential for international harmonization -- before deciding whether, and if so, how, to make it available for more intensive terrestrial or satellite use.” The agency is “considering the criteria that should be used for assessing interference between mobile and satellite services,” which is “important because one study in our record points to an interference-to-noise ratio based on an ITU-R specification that applies to terrestrial and satellite interference, while others advocate for a more stringent threshold that some satellite systems are required to use to coordinate among themselves under FCC rules,” she said. The FCC is looking at the “operational parameters and technical specifications of satellite user terminals in the band -- such as how many there will be, what will be the separation distances between satellite user terminals and 5G stations, what will be the elevation angle, antenna height, and antenna gain of the satellite user terminals -- and how best to structure a Monte Carlo simulation,” Rosenworcel said.