T-Mobile urged the FCC to deny MatrixSpace's petition for waiver of the U.S. table of frequency allocations and the commission’s Part 87 rules for radars mounted on drones that could provide radionavigation or radiolocation in the 24.45-24.65 GHz band. The use would be similar to use of the band by Echodyne, which the FCC OK'd in 2019 (see 1906130051). The FCC should delay approval until MatrixSpace “submits technical details regarding its proposed operations and a comprehensive interference analysis similar to the one Echodyne Corporation … performed to demonstrate that its proposed radiolocation operations will not cause harmful interference to licensed users with primary status in the band,” T-Mobile said in a filing posted Wednesday. It said it doesn’t “oppose using the 24.45-24.65 GHz band for radiolocation on a secondary basis as a general matter” and “agrees that radiolocation uses in the band can help government and private entities secure sensitive areas and protect critical infrastructure.” Comments were due Wednesday in docket 23-216 and T-Mobile was the only party to file. MatrixSpace sought the waiver in January.

Most wireless consumers are addressing problems with their service online but “nothing matches the overall customer satisfaction and experience that in-store representatives can provide,” said a J.D. Power report released Thursday. “Within other channels, customers may be dealing with a bot or an overseas call center,” said Ian Greenblatt, J.D. Power managing director-technology, media and telecom: “In a world where the use of applications is high, those chats and bots provide both speed and economy; the in-person service provides a more complete understanding of a customer’s needs and wants and, ultimately, higher satisfaction is achieved when resolving wireless issues.” T-Mobile got the top marks in the network operators segment, Consumer Cellular in the value mobile virtual network operator segment.

T-Mobile added 760,000 net postpaid customers in Q2, besting AT&T and Verizon, it reported Thursday. That’s up from 538,000 in Q1. T-Mobile also picked up a net 509,000 customers for its home internet service, which it said is “more than AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter combined.” Postpaid churn hit a record low for the carrier of 0.77%. Service revenue of $15.7 billion was up 3% year-over-year and net income was $2.2 billion, compared with a net loss of $108 million last year. T-Mobile raised its guidance for the year in several areas and is now projecting 5.6 million-5.9 million postpaid net customer additions, compared with prior guidance of 5.3 million-5.7 million. T-Mobile said 285 million POPs are covered by T-Mobile’s Ultra Capacity 5G network, which uses its 2.5 GHz spectrum. Consumers are starting to “take notice” of T-Mobile’s 5G network “as we’re winning prime network seekers in the top 100 markets,” CEO Mike Sievert said on a call with analysts. In small markets, T-Mobile is capturing 30% of customers who switch networks, he said. Sievert said T-Mobile’s integration of Sprint is now “substantially complete, with both the billing migration and retail rationalization done ahead of a year-end target. The deadline has passed for Dish Network to exercise an option it got as part of a complicated arrangement on T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint to acquire the company’s 800 MHz spectrum for $3.4 billion (see 2304280049), Sievert said. Dish asked for additional time from the DOJ to consider what it would do “and we did not object to that,” he said. Dish has until Aug. 11 before T-Mobile will terminate the offer, Sievert said: “But, in fact, we’re in discussions with Dish about whether or not there might be a win-win that’s different from their initial privilege … But that deadline is coming.”

Representatives of Google and Qualcomm addressed questions from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology on the possibility of subjecting very-low-power (VLP) devices to exclusion zones in the 6 GHz band, as proposed by some band incumbents. “If the Commission were to require some system of exclusion zones, it could ensure that VLP exclusion zones would be no larger than a 6 GHz automated frequency coordination system would have computed for a device at the same power level,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. “At the very least these exclusion zones should account for 3 dB of polarization mismatch loss, up to 3 dB of feeder loss (depending on the Fixed-Service radio), and a Fixed-Service receiver noise figure of 4.0-4.5 dB, depending on frequency,” they said. The FCC proposed in an April 2020 Further NPRM to allow VLP devices to operate in the band indoors without use of AFC (see 2306230046).

An American Radio Relay League (ARRL) representative spoke with an FCC Wireless Bureau staffer on the group’s long-standing request that the agency address limits on the symbol, or baud, rate for amateur communications (see 1907160016). “Removing the limitation on symbol rate would measurably improve spectrum efficiency and incentivize innovation by allowing more data to be transmitted within each signal without increasing bandwidth from that currently used,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 16-239. “Doing so also would open up spectrum capacity for other users by shortening the time needed to transmit each message,” ARRL said.

The FCC may be violating the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to issue 2.5 GHz licenses to T-Mobile, which it won in a 2022 auction, Free State Foundation Director-Communications Policy Studies Seth Cooper blogged Thursday. The FCC faced growing pressure to award the licenses but maintains it doesn’t have the authority to do so following the March expiration of its auction authority (see 2307070042). Section 706(1) of the APA “authorizes courts to ‘compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed,’” Cooper wrote, but he said he’s not arguing litigation is necessary to force the FCC to act. “T-Mobile reasonably relied to its detriment on the Commission's rules, the 2019 [2.5 GHz] order, and the agency's auction procedures,” he said: “T-Mobile is materially prejudiced by the agency's indefinite withholding of licenses worth $304 million, as it is being denied the benefit of using the spectrum to offer 5G services to consumers. Thus, all the elements for mandamus relief based on a claim of agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed are present.”

PCTEL announced release of a new tri-band omnidirectional antenna targeting industrial IoT, enterprise and mining customers. “PCTEL’s new tri-band antenna platform offers top-of-the-line performance in a rugged, low-profile design and can operate in the full Wi-Fi 7 frequency range, allowing simultaneous support of multiple Wi-Fi standards in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands,” the company said Wednesday.

Representatives from the ATIS Hearing Aid Compatibility Task Force met with FCC staff urging action on an agency waiver sought by the group (see 2304060053). “The HAC Task Force representatives highlighted the unanimous record support for the Waiver Request and discussed various technical details related to the consensus interim testing standard,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 15-285. They spoke with staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs and Wireless bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology. The task force members said three areas of the Telecommunications Industry Association 5050 standard need further consideration: “(i) receive distortion and noise performance; (ii) acoustic frequency response; and (iii) consideration of codecs with speech bandwidth exceeding 50-7000 Hz.” They said “addressing the issues in the TIA 5050 standard will take some time, and TIA is already working to address these issues.”

CTIA representatives urged the FCC to take a cautious approach to a March robotext Further NPRM (see 2303160061), in a meeting with Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staff. The advocacy is consistent with the FCC’s comments in the proceeding (see 2305090047). “The record developed in response to the FNPRM confirms that the wireless industry’s multi-pronged, dynamic solutions are tailored to target the ever-evolving ways that bad actors seek to reach consumers,” said a filing Tuesday in docket 21-402. “The record also shows that solutions that work in the robocall context are unlikely to be effective for text messages, and that current efforts to identify and block spam texts are better equipped to address bad actors’ ever-changing and increasingly complex tactics than the ‘block upon notice’ or caller ID authentication proposals in the FNPRM,” CTIA said.

Representatives of Apple and Broadcom proposed rule tweaks for very low-power operations in the 6 GHz band, in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. They also spoke with a staffer from the Office of Engineering and Technology. The FCC proposed in an April 2020 Further NPRM to allow VLP devices to operate in the band indoors without automated frequency control (see 2306230046). “In order to reduce the already insignificant risk of harmful interference even further … we discussed that the Commission could take two further steps,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. The FCC could create a transmit power control (TPC) rule for VLP equipment “that contains a specific and measurable power-reduction mandate,” the filing said: “Such a rule could state that TPC shall, on average, reduce the PSD [power spectral density] of the VLP device by 3 dB, compared to the maximum permitted PSD of VLP devices. The Commission would then permit VLP equipment makers to demonstrate during the FCC device certification process that a particular VLP device complies with this rule in order to receive authorization to operate at the maximum permitted” PSD. The FCC could also prohibit VLP devices from operating as part of a fixed outdoor installation, Apple and Broadcom said: “By doing so, the Commission would ensure that all VLP operations would be itinerant, not operating at any one set place and in any one set orientation to a FS receiver.”