Spectrum for the Future, which represents companies and groups focused on unlicensed spectrum, Monday countered wireless carrier arguments that the lower 3 GHz band should be allocated for full-power, licensed use. “First and foremost, the U.S. wireless carriers’ current mid-band spectrum holdings exceed the amount of spectrum dedicated to wireless carriers in China and in many European countries,” the group said. The U.S. has already allocated hundreds of megahertz of mid-band spectrum at 3.65-4 GHz to U.S. carriers, “whereas China has not yet allocated that spectrum,” the group said: “The mobile network operators want you to believe there is a binary choice -- clear the spectrum for our companies or lose to China, or Europe or somebody else.”

Nokia said Monday its cloud radio access option, anyRAN, will be available commercially this year. “Last year, we launched anyRAN to give our customers more flexibility with Cloud RAN and we have since made huge strides in making Cloud RAN a commercial reality by completing numerous pilots and trials with the wider industry,” said Tommi Uitto, Nokia president-mobile networks. “We are now extending our reach to private wireless by offering more choices on core with our industry partners,” he said.

Supplemental coverage from space applications should show how those deployments would support 911 call and text routing to the geographically appropriate public safety answering point with sufficient location information, Intrado said. In a meeting with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington's office recapped in a docket 22-271 filing Monday, company officials said some SCS 911 calls and texts will need to be routed to a nationwide 911 relay call center that can retrieve the location from the handset or ask the user verbally for the location and the nature of the emergency, they said.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation called on regulators to rethink their spectrum sharing approach, refocusing on a top tier providing licenses for full-power use of a band, with reliable access at all times. “The dichotomy between dynamic spectrum sharing and exclusive licensing is a false one,” ITIF said in a report released Monday: “Reliable, full-power access is possible within a dynamic sharing framework if the FCC auctions super-priority rights to commercial users.” ITIF cited the model provided by the citizens broadband radio service band, which offered three tiers, with priority access licenses (PALs) sold in an FCC auction, with lesser rights than the incumbent Navy systems the rules are designed to protect. “We should not confuse the particulars of that band with the principles of the dynamic sharing system,” the report said. “In a band with significantly fewer incumbency interests, rights amenable to proponents of exclusive, shared, and unlicensed spectrum can coexist within a dynamic sharing system with only a minor alteration: Instead of just protecting incumbents and auctioning PALs that are secondary to the incumbents’ rights, the FCC should also auction licenses for the same type of rights the Navy has in the CBRS band.” ITIF noted widespread industry criticism of how CBRS works. Part of the reason “for decrying CBRS is that it should hardly qualify as ‘sharing’ when the federal incumbent retains the right to do whatever it wants whenever and wherever it wants,” the report said. ITIF noted there have been no reports of Navy systems suffering harmful interference since CBRS was launched. “Any party that thinks the Navy has reliable, full-power access in the current CBRS band should leap at the opportunity to get the same deal in another band,” ITIF said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Monday on Echodyne’s pursuit of a five-year extension of its waiver of rules allowing ground-based use of its EchoGuard radar, which detects objects on the ground and in the air, using the 24.45–24.65 GHz band (see 2402090064). Comments are due March 27, replies April 11, in docket 17-352. A 2019 waiver expires June 12 (see 1906130051).

CTIA told the FCC “the record strongly supports” its request for a 12-month extension (see 2401090026) of the FCC's six-month deadline for carriers to implement rules protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud. “The record also makes clear that a workable compliance deadline serves the public interest,” CTIA said, in a filing posted Monday in docket 21-341: “CTIA shares the Commission’s goals of fraud prevention and security for consumers and business customers.” The FCC “significantly underestimated the time needed for industry compliance with the new SIM swap and port-out fraud rules,” the Competitive Carriers Association said. Meeting a six-month deadline “would be a significant challenge to even the largest nationwide carriers” and most CCA members are “smaller carriers with extremely limited resources and often over-extended staff multitasking on multiple projects,” CCA said. NCTA also supported CTIA’s petition, saying the new rules “will require the development of new authentication procedures, new customer notifications, and new recordkeeping, among other things.” Covered companies “will have to undertake significant employee training efforts,” NCTA said. Replies to oppositions were due Friday at the FCC.

AT&T has started deploying Ericsson cloud radio access network technology on its network, the companies said Monday. AT&T announced in December a five-year contract with Ericsson worth as much as $14 billion for open RAN (see 2312050049). “The two companies have completed a Cloud RAN call as a milestone in deploying Open RAN,” said a news release: “AT&T now has commercial traffic flowing on Cloud RAN sites, the first ones of which are located south of Dallas. … The configuration used for the Cloud RAN call has been deployed in the AT&T network, and third-party vendors will be able to use this configuration for Open RAN in the future.”

AT&T CEO John Stankey apologized for last week’s outage, which affected about 75% of customers (see 2402220058), in a Sunday employee letter, saying, “No matter the timing, one thing is clear -- we let down many of our customers, including many of you and your families." AT&T will immediately credit customers for a full day of service, he said. In addition, Stankey said the company’s ongoing review indicates the culprit was “application and execution of an incorrect process used while working to expand our network.”

Alaska’s Bristol Bay Cellular Partnership agreed to start sending wireless emergency alerts to subscribers, said a filing posted Friday in docket 15-91. The carrier said in 2008 it filed at the FCC a letter saying it wouldn’t participate in the WEA system and is now changing its position.

EchoStar, RS Access and Go Long Wireless entered into an agreement with the Cherokee Nation to make 100 MHz of lower 12 GHz spectrum available to the tribe for fixed wireless. EchoStar’s Dish Network earlier offered to make the band available in tribal areas as the FCC looks at revising rules for the band (see 2309110061). The companies said they are looking to sign similar agreements with other tribes. “Under the terms of the agreement, the Cherokee Nation (or another participating Tribal entity) would be assigned free and clear 100 MHz of spectrum (12.2-12.3 GHz) and could use as much of that 100 MHz band as it needs for fixed wireless service, with the [multichannel video distribution and data service] licensee and the Tribal entity having a mutual right to use each other’s unused spectrum as needed for their own operations across the entire 12.2 GHz band,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-443. The approach “would help close the longstanding digital divide for underserved and hard-to-reach Tribal lands, while simultaneously respecting tribal sovereignty and self-determination,” the filing said. In a call last week with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, tribal broadband advocates discussed the potential significance of a proposal giving tribes access to the lower 12 GHz band. The advocates made similar points in an earlier meeting with Commissioner Brendan Carr (see 2402140035).