Comments are due Sept. 20, replies Oct. 18, on an NPRM proposing revised rules for short-range radars in the 60 GHz band (see 2107130066), said a Thursday Federal Register notice. The proposal “recognizes the increasing practicality of using mobile radar devices in the 60 GHz band to perform innovative and lifesaving functions, including gesture control, detection of unattended children in vehicles, and monitoring of vulnerable medical patients, and it is designed to stimulate the development of new products and services in a wide variety of areas,” the notice said. The docket is 21-264.

General Motors said Thursday it will add 5G connectivity from AT&T to its vehicles starting with some models in 2023. “This rollout is part of GM and AT&T’s broad strategy to launch the world’s largest fleet of 5G-enabled vehicles and the culmination of a two-year collaboration,” GM said. Vehicles with 4G connections will migrate to the new network infrastructure “when available,” the automaker said.

MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett sees potentially tough times ahead for the wireless industry, despite continuing rapid growth in postpaid subscriptions, tracking five times faster than annual population growth. “The industry’s super-normal growth informs every industry metric,” Moffett said in a Thursday analysis of Q2 results: “It has flattered every operator. Like the storied children of Lake Wobegon, everyone is above average.” But Moffett questioned how long that trend will continue. “Strong subscriber growth has been a welcome offset for what has otherwise been rather anemic growth in revenues and EBITDA, particularly for Verizon and AT&T,” he said. If industry subscriber growth returns to normal “the backdrop won’t be nearly so flattering,” he said. Moffett warned that customers gained through aggressive promotions, cheap lines and free phones “inevitably promote low quality phone net additions.” To keep those customers from going elsewhere “the companies now dependent on promotions to bolster growth will need them even more to maintain it,” he said. Moffett has a sell rating on AT&T, neutral on Verizon and buy on T-Mobile.

Launching automated frequency control (AFC) in the 6 GHz band will likely be complicated and could take years to roll out, members of the Wireless Innovation Forum’s 6 GHz Committee Steering Group warned FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff. Experiences with the citizens broadband radio service and TV white spaces suggest the process could take three years or longer, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. The process “could also be lengthy if required to wait for the FCC to perform AFC system testing, or select (and possibly accredit) third-party labs,” the filing said. The group asked about ways to streamline testing, whether some steps can be done in parallel and about AFC system operators testing their own systems.

The FirstNet board approved a $253 million budget for FY 2022 Wednesday. The budget allocates $79.3 million for operations, with the same amount in reserve. Another $94 million will be invested in network improvements. “FirstNet users now have access to AT&T’s 5G spectrum in a growing number of markets, and the new assets are helping to meet public safety’s increasing demand for deployables with nearly 1,000 requests … from January 2020 to date,” FirstNet said.

A single-round 2.5 GHz auction is “likely to be substantially more successful” than the standard simultaneous multiple round format, AT&T representatives told staff from the FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics. AT&T warned of T-Mobile’s dominance in the band. “T-Mobile controls, through leases, the majority of incumbent 2.5 GHz licenses on a nationwide basis and has strong incentives to fill out that nationwide footprint with the overlay licenses” in the auction, said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 20-429. “The multiple rounds of an SMR auction would enable T-Mobile to discover which licenses have little or no competition and to win them at prices below its valuation, often at or near the reserve price.”

The FCC said Wednesday 42 companies filed short-form applications to bid in the 3.45 GHz auction, which starts Oct. 5. Sixteen applications were deemed incomplete. Among those now qualified are AT&T, T-Mobile and UScellular. Verizon has work to do on its application, which was found to be incomplete. Dish Network, which largely sat out the C-band auction, is in. Only 42 applicants applied to bid, down from 74 in the C-band auction. “It appears that Cable has not signed up to bid,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin wrote investors: “No other dark horses (such as a Big Tech player) immediately jump out either, suggesting the bulk of the competition for the spectrum will happen between carriers (as we would expect).”

Comcast's cybersecurity strategies include assessing how the company might be affected by major breaches like those against Colonial Pipeline and T-Mobile, said Chief Product and Information Security Officer Noopur Davis. She spoke Tuesday in Aspen, Colorado, at the Technology Policy Institute conference, where the previous day, the incident at T-Mobile was discussed and disclosed; see our reports here and here. "Immediately, yesterday, I had to step out of some of these sessions" at TPI when she heard of the data hacks against T-Mobile, Davis said: "My immediate, emotional response to seeing something like T-Mobile in the news is sympathy and empathy," and "it could happen to any of us." The reported incident spurred Comcast to look at "how did these threat actors get into T-Mobile" and are there "things that could impact us," Davis said. "Our surface is enormous" for possible attacks at Comcast, she added. "You have to start looking at that entire ecosystem." T-Mobile didn't comment on her remarks, saying it had no update on the incident. Davis also spoke to TPI about her company's cybersecurity strategy (see 2108170054).

The FCC Wireless Bureau granted nine 900 MHz broadband segment licenses Monday, all to PDV Spectrum Holding. The licenses cover markets in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, including St. Louis.

Handsets with 5G functionality are expected to generate more than half of all smartphone industry revenue by 2025, rising to $337 billion from $108 billion in 2021, reported Juniper Research Monday. “Increasing the availability of lower-tier 5G smartphones is crucial to propagate 5G handset adoption in emerging markets,” it said. It’s pegging global Android smartphone pricing to be 65% lower than that of iOS by 2025, but “the enduring popularity of iOS devices in developed markets will make 40% of global 5G smartphone revenue attributable to North America and Europe.” It warned that right-to-repair legislation may impede 5G smartphone industry revenue growth “as more handset users choose to repair older models rather than upgrading.”