AT&T’s key focuses are 5G, fiber and high-speed connectivity, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Friday at a Morgan Stanley virtual investor conference. While AT&T has deployed high-band spectrum in almost 40 cities, low band has proven more important during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. There has been “a dramatic shift in volumes into the suburban and into the rural areas, where our extensive … low-band spectrum holdings and our extensive towers and fiber footprint have really served us well and served our customers well,” he said. Millimeter wave is “only part of an integrated solution,” he said. COVID “provided a reassurance of the quality of the resilient products of broadband, wireless connectivity,” he said. But AT&T is still recovering. “It's challenged the media business, the closing of theaters,” he said: “The challenge with getting production completed and having to postpone or delay production.” AT&T is betting big on fiber, and not just broadband service to the home, he said. “I think about building a fiber plan that allows me to have backhaul for wireless, particularly when you think about some of the residential areas where traffic has grown substantially because you are working from home,” he said.

AT&T supports concerns raised by Southern Co., CTIA and others (see 2011170040) on the potential for harmful interference from uncontrolled very-low-power devices fixed service microwave systems in the 6 GHz band, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai indicated Wednesday he won't seek a Dec. 10 vote (see 2011180065).

Sagebrush Cellular told the FCC it supports a Rural Wireless Association petition (see 2011090047) for clarity on whether providers eligible for reimbursement will get funds before adoption of final rules requiring they replace equipment from nonsecure vendors like Huawei. Sagebrush said it uses Huawei gear and faces “increasingly difficult business decisions” absent clarity, in a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-89. “Sagebrush does not need all uncertainty removed … but we do need some assurance that significant expenses and purchases will be reimbursed.”

Make the 3.45-3.55 GHz band available for wireless service in the U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, said BlueSky and Docomo Pacific in an FCC filing posted Wednesday in docket 19-348. “These areas of the country have a substantial and ever-increasing demand for wireless broadband service, and thus, the same urgent need for mid-band spectrum exists in the territories, as in the contiguous United States,” the carriers said: “However, the 3.7 GHz band is wholly unavailable, and the 3.5 GHz … band is largely unavailable, in the territories.”

Verizon and T-Mobile urged light-touch regulation in replies on an NPRM commissioners approved in July (see 2007160045) on potential changes to telecom service priority (TSP) and wireless priority service (WPS) rules. Comments “reflect a broad recognition that the Commission should preserve today’s reliance on negotiated commercial agreements between providers and [the Department of Homeland Security], and continue to apply the light regulatory touch already governing the IP-enabled services [National Security and Emergency Preparedness] users demand,” Verizon said. Rules should define DHS program administration responsibilities “to ensure that countervailing DHS rules or guidelines do not compromise the Commission’s light regulatory touch for IP-enabled services,” the carrier said: “Commenters recognize that prescriptive technical and operational requirements governing the implementation of priority and preemption capabilities are unnecessary.” T-Mobile said a "light touch" approach “where the details of carriers' priority service offerings are determined predominantly by contract better allows industry to meet the specific needs of … users and creates a flexible regulatory environment that will encourage innovation.” Rules should “ensure that carriers providing Title II services remain insulated from any potential violations of the Communications Act when affording those services priority treatment” and “ensure that priority service users are treated consistently across networks,” T-Mobile said. No one else filed replies in docket 20-187.

Nearly 80% of U.S. digital minutes in August were spent on mobile devices, reported Comscore Wednesday, citing “the explosion of streaming service choices and user generated short-form video.” Video viewing on mobile devices grew 65% from August 2017 to August 2020, outpacing viewing on desktop, which grew 21%. Digital retail spending on mobile was 31% of Q2 digital retail, up from 16% five years ago. Average online monthly purchases grew from two in Q2 2019 to 4.5.

Seek comment on rules for a 2.5 GHz auction, T-Mobile asked the FCC in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-120. The carrier is expected to be the top player in that auction. “The time between the Commission’s issuance of a Public Notice seeking comment on auction procedures is generally between six and nine months,” T-Mobile said. “To meet these timing requirements and auction the 2.5 GHz band in the first half of 2021 … the Commission must issue a Public Notice on auction procedures in December.”

T-Mobile will cover 40 million in the U.S. with 5G using its 2.5 GHz spectrum by the end of this week, with 100 million by the end of this year and 200 million by the end of 2021, said Neville Ray, president-technology, at a BCG/New Street Research conference Tuesday. “We have spent a long time leveling the playing field on coverage.” Midband 5G will give his carrier an advantage over AT&T and Verizon, he said. “That is where folks are going to see a really differentiated, high-capacity, high-speed performance layer,” he said: “They are going to see it from T-Mobile with broad coverage and ubiquitous coverage very, very fast.” No carrier could provide enough coverage to reach a broad market using high-band spectrum, he said. Millimeter wave has its place but will never “deliver a phone in your hand, wherever you go, with multi-GB speed,” he said: “It is mythical.” Ray said that when the pandemic started, he got nervous as some local governments shut down their permitting offices. Most have gone to online processing, he said. “They worked through the pandemic, work effectively with us, and so now I have this huge volume of permits.” Sprint integration should be mostly complete within two years, and changing over billing could take more time, he said. “We still have a lot of wood to chop.”

ARRL opposed fees for amateur radio licensees in comments posted Tuesday in docket 20-270 in response to an August NPRM. “Licensees in the Amateur Radio Service were not subject to application fees under the earlier statutory provision, and nothing in the current statute or its legislative history conveys any Congressional intent that applications for amateur radio licensees be subject to application fees,” ARRL said. CTIA sought tweaks to proposed rules. “Assess fees based on the complexity of the transaction,” the group said: “Application processing fees for wireless assignment, transfer of control, and de facto transfer lease applications should be based on whether the application is subject to the Commission’s ‘immediate approval’ or ‘general approval’ procedures, since this is a better gauge for determining the Commission’s processing costs than only the number of call signs included in the application.” Assess fees on a per-application basis when all call signs are subject to the same review and “exempt applications from fees when minimal (if any) staff review is required,” CTIA asked. Take into account that “wireless services include a significant variety of systems that will be treated as comparable for application fee purposes under the proposed streamlined approach,” commented the Enterprise Wireless Alliance: The current licensing regime is “both incomplete in that some services cannot be charged a filing fee and … overly complex.”

IEE Sensing asked the FCC to grant a waiver of Part 15 rules to permit equipment certification of the VitaSense sensor to provide unattended child detection functions in a completely stopped vehicle. “Such a waiver would well serve the public interest by saving lives, without creating any risk of harmful interference,” the company said in a Monday petition. The device operates across 4 GHz of spectrum at 60-64 GHz.