Alaska’s GCI became the latest carrier to raise timing concerns on an FCC proposal that carriers more precisely route wireless 911 calls and texts to public safety answering points through location-based routing (LBR) (see 2212210047). “A longer timeline than proposed in the NPRM would likely be required for non-nationwide and regional carriers such as GCI to both deploy and use LBR in their networks,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-64. GCI also said implementing LBR for SMS- and MMS-based texts-to-911 “would be much more difficult than for IP-originated wireless calls, and that significant additional standards development and industry agreement should occur prior to any FCC requirement.” GCI representatives met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said it will no longer require ex parte filings on presentations on a June 2021 notice of inquiry on FCC equipment authorization rules (see 2106170063). “In the time since the Commission issued the NOI significant developments have taken place to advance initiatives for IoT cybersecurity labeling,” said a notice posted Tuesday in docket 21-232. Making the NOI an “exempt proceeding” will “facilitate the free exchange of exploratory ideas among the staff of Federal agencies and interested stakeholders working toward the important goal of promoting security of IoT devices,” OET said.

Cablers discussed the importance of unlicensed spectrum and called for a shared spectrum “pipeline,” in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. They also discussed the importance of the citizens broadband radio service band and a CBRS-like approach to sharing. The wireless industry has stressed the importance of “pipeline” of licensed spectrum as 5G takes off (see 2209260048). “To keep pace with … ever-growing consumer and industry demand, it is essential to continually build a robust pipeline of unlicensed and shared-licensed spectrum resources, and ensure that each band’s operating requirements allow consumers to experience its maximum benefits,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295. “The largest national wireless carriers, manufacturers, utilities, schools, hospitals, energy companies, neutral host networks, like stadiums and convention centers, municipalities, and small and rural wireless” are “actively using CBRS for a variety of wireless services,” the cable interests said: “Many new, non-traditional providers, like manufacturers, hospitals, and schools, were able to access commercial spectrum for the first time because of CBRS’ innovative sharing regime and licensing rules, which allowed them to compete at auction and tailor smaller license sizes to their specialized network needs.” Among those at the meeting were NCTA, Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Enterprises and CableLabs.

T-Mobile was the fastest among the three major carriers in the U.S. in Q2, Ookla said Monday. T-Mobile had a median download speed of 164.76 Mbps on modern chipsets, a slight decline from 165.22 Mbps in Q1, based on speed tests. Verizon Wireless (72.61 Mbps) and AT&T (66.16) “were distant runners up and both saw minor declines in download speed,” Ookla said. T-Mobile’s media upload speed was 12.16 Mbps, versus 9.11 for Verizon and 7.32 for AT&T. The speeds from T-Mobile were also the most consistent among the big three, Ookla said.

The National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Monday issued guidance on 5G network slicing, under which carriers are able to divide their network into several virtual networks to meet different 5G use cases. “It is not the goal of this document to provide an exhaustive how-to list for the design and operation of a network slice; rather, to introduce best practices that can help mitigate threats,” the document says: “The threat landscape in 5G is dynamic; due to this, advanced monitoring, auditing, and other analytical capabilities are required to meet certain levels of network slicing service level requirements over time.” The report discusses “identified threats” to network slicing and “industry recognized practices for the design, deployment, operation, and maintenance of a hardened 5G standalone network slice.”

Last week’s MLB All-Star game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle shows the benefits of 5G, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert blogged Monday. “We have a superfast, award-winning 5G network that continues to come to life in new ways,” he said: “Take the MLB Next app with augmented reality: Fans at T-Mobile Park … could take a 3D look at the ball and the launch angle, watch pitch replays, and see a bird’s-eye view of ALL the live action.” The game also featured MLB’s automated ball-strike system, he said. The system uses cameras to track pitches as they pass through a 3D strike zone for each batter, Sievert said. “The calls are instantaneously available, providing the first step toward revolutionizing how they’re made in real time,” he said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau granted five additional licenses Monday, in the 900 MHz broadband segment, to PDV Spectrum. The licenses are in Colorado. The FCC approved an order in 2020 reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband, while maintaining 4 MHz for narrowband operations (see 2005130057).

Dish Network certified at the FCC that as of June 14 it offered 5G broadband service to nearly 246.5 million people in the U.S., equal to 73.56% total U.S. population based on 2020 U.S. census data. Dish said download speeds are equal to or greater than 35 Mbps, and it has deployed 16,399 5G sites. “DISH’s user equipment offering includes the Motorola Edge Plus 2023, an advanced 5G smartphone,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 22-212: “It operates on, among other spectrum frequencies, DISH’s AWS-4, AWS H Block, 600 MHz, and Lower 700 MHz E Block spectrum licenses. The coverage calculations and link budgets in this 5G Buildout Status Report are based upon the technical specifications and performance of this device.” Dish previously announced it had met the June 14 coverage milestone (see 2306150010). “Project Genesis is available to anyone in a qualifying location, and offers unlimited 5G data and voice services for $25/month,” Dish said. The carrier asked that technical data it submitted be given confidential treatment by the FCC and not publicly disclosed. "Disclosure of the Confidential 5G Materials would be particularly harmful to DISH because of our status as a nascent competitor to the largest incumbent wireless carriers," Dish said. "DISH zealously guards information about its ongoing 5G deployment from incumbent competitors because its disclosure would give them an undue commercial advantage competing with DISH, which is a competitor in the consumer mobile wireless market."

The Wireless ISP Association met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in its push for a technology-neutral approach to rules for the FCC’s Alternative Connect America Cost Model program (see 2306260044). “Unlicensed spectrum can be provided, and is being provided, reliably and without causing or suffering harmful interference through high-quality engineering and network architecture,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 10-90. “Operators of unlicensed broadband networks have a mutual desire to avoid interfering with each other, and instances of harmful interference are negligible and frequently the result of off-network problems such as fiber cuts on upstream backhaul connections,” WISPA said.

Martin Cooper, known as the inventor of the cellphone as a Motorola technologist, is a skeptic of wireless industry arguments about a pending spectrum crisis. The world “is just at the beginning of the cellular revolution,” he said on a Cooley webinar Thursday, interviewed by former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. The standard story is that spectrum “is like beachfront property -- when you use it all up, there isn’t anymore,” Cooper said. “How can that be true?” When Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated the first radio, he used all the available spectrum for most of the world, Cooper said. Fifty years later “we had a million times more capacity, and believe it or not, another 50 years” later “and we did another million times,” he said: “Somehow or other, technology has stayed ahead of the game forever, and we have never had a scarcity of spectrum.” The technology already exists to make much more efficient use of spectrum, he said. The challenge “is to change our perception of spectrum, to get people to understand that we’ve got to … share the spectrum,” he said. McDowell noted Cooper developed what some call “Cooper’s Law,” that spectral efficiency doubles every 30 months and becomes exponential over time. Cooper’s wife, Arlene Harris, who co-founded wireless technology company Dyna with him in 1986, said on the webinar the expiration of the FCC’s auction authority in March could be a good thing for the wireless industry. “Good for Congress -- let’s starve the carriers,” Harris said. The carriers will then have to put pressure on their suppliers to develop technological solutions to capacity issues, she said. The technology Cooper developed in the 1990s “would have improved [network] capacity a ton, and yet the commission goes off and sells more spectrum -- the carriers had no reason to implement that technology,” Harris said: “They were buying spectrum and parking it.” Cooper envisions a world without exclusive licenses for spectrum. Allocations would be done “on the fly,” he said. Someone who wants to make a call would ask for a channel “and that channel is created instantaneously over the optimum frequency, the optimum amount of power,” he said: “We reconfigure as things change. That is the way systems should work. We are a long way away from that today, but that is how we’re going to get another million times capacity in spectrum capacity, and it’s all doable” with the right processing, smart antennas and other technology. The government is going to have to convince carriers to share spectrum, which won’t be easy, he said. “Carriers today think they own the spectrum -- they don’t own the spectrum, they have a license to use it,” Cooper said.