The U.S. Department of Labor gave the Wireless Infrastructure Association a contract to be the 5G industry intermediary to develop a wireless workforce, WIA said Monday. WIA is the national sponsor of the Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program, the group noted. “The contract will enable WIA to assist employers in developing over 600 apprentices in the next year, with multi-year options to renew thereafter,” and $400,000 annually “in incentive funds for employers that adopt registered apprenticeship and serve under-represented populations,” WIA said. Industry needs to invest in the workforce now to be ready for 5G, WIA President Jonathan Adelstein said in an interview. “There’s a real crunch ahead, with all the carriers investing, plus Dish” Network, he said, noting Congress could also authorize funding for infrastructure. “We’ve got to put this effort on steroids” since 5G takes more workers with specialized skills than any previous generation, he said. “There’s never a guarantee,” he said. “You’ll always get people to do these jobs; the question is are they really ready to do it.”

Reject complaints that Clark County, Nevada, is charging rates for access to public rights of way and attachments beyond what the FCC allows, the county said, countering Verizon and Crown Castle in a Thursday posting in docket 19-230. “Because the County took the Commission at its word and sought to reach ‘mutually agreed upon solutions’ not a single party is paying the rates outlined in Ordinance 4659,” the county said: “To advance this matter would be to send the very wrong signal to communities ... that cooperative efforts are not worth the paper on which they are written if the carrier wants to renegotiate" via an FCC petition.

The Competitive Carriers Association had a series of FCC calls to seek action on the proposed 5G Fund. “The record establishes near-universal support for conducting a mapping process to identify unserved areas before allocating funding,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-32. “Ensure that rural areas are on track for 5G deployment by allowing carriers to use 5G Fund resources either to build 5G networks immediately, or to invest in the building blocks towards 5G.” CCA spoke with staff from the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, Office of Economics and Analytics and Wireline Bureau, and with aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr. The FCC Consumer Advisory Committee was briefed on the fund Friday (see 2009250056).

Consider proposals to relocate cellular vehicle-to-everything signaling “from the unused 5.9 GHz band to the 4.9 GHz band,” New America's Open Technology Institute asked in a filing posted Friday in docket 07-100. The FCC votes Wednesday, but Chairman Ajit Pai may not have three votes (see 2009240039). OTI spoke with aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel. The Public Safety Spectrum Alliance has “concerns about this plan as it relates to the current and future needs of public safety across the nation and their willingness to work with the FCC to determine an appropriate path forward,” representatives told an O’Rielly aide.

The consensus from the FCC’s recent open radio access network forum (see 2009140054) is that ORAN technologies are “showing great promise," and "the public and private sectors should continue to collaborate to help encourage their deployment,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai told the Prague 5G Security Conference Thursday. Last year, the conference released 5G network security proposals, emphasizing a cooperative approach that's often cited (see 1905030052). “Many carriers building out 5G networks are recognizing that you get what you pay for, and that the long-term costs of using insecure equipment are likely to outweigh any short-term savings,” Pai said now: “Making the right choices early on in the network planning and deployment process is much easier and ultimately cheaper than trying to correct mistakes once network construction and operation is well underway.”

Add to the 3.45-3.55 GHz NPRM questions on whether sharing similar to that in the citizens broadband radio service band would work there, the Open Technology Institute at New America urged an aide to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “The NPRM should at a minimum solicit comment on important elements of the CBRS framework that could enhance more intense, efficient and diverse use,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 19-348: “Regardless of the Commission’s tentative proposals, the record should reflect a robust consideration of options including smaller licensing areas (e.g., counties), authorizing opportunistic use of spectrum in areas where licensees are not providing service, and harmonizing the technical rules with CBRS in general.” Commissioners vote Wednesday (see 2009210056).

FCC technical rules for 5.9 GHz should focus on protecting vehicle-to-everything and other safety-critical intelligent transportation system messages, NCTA said in an FCC filing posted Wednesday in docket 19-138. Don't "consider non-safety-critical ITS applications, or another round of promised future ITS applications that history suggests will never emerge,” the group said. “Static analyses based on hypothetical corner cases are not useful in assessing the real world impact of adjacent-band Wi-Fi.” Commissioners are expected to consider an order as early as October (see 2009090058).

Major County Sheriffs of America, AT&T and others asked the FCC to pull the 4.9 GHz order from the Sept. 30 commissioners’ meeting. Public safety agencies use the band for their mission critical communications, wrote Kimberly Wagner, executive director of the sheriffs group, posted Wednesday in docket 07-100. “Local public safety agencies have spent millions of dollars investing in networks on the 4.9 GHz band. These systems are particularly important now during our nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, large scale wildfires, and hurricanes.” AT&T, which is building a network for FirstNet, said adoption “would be unlikely to lead to more efficient use” of the band, in calls with aides to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks. “Saying the band has ‘fallen short of its potential’ is not an accurate statement,” said the Kansas Emergency Medical Services Association. “The FCC did very little, if anything, to promote or ensure this frequency band was being utilized to its potential,” said the Missouri Emergency Medical Services Association: “Public safety agencies nationwide are constantly faced with difficult financial decisions and a project this size takes a tremendous amount of time and planning.” Public safety groups raised similar objections Tuesday (see 2009220056); the agency hasn't been commenting. The Wireless ISP Association supported the draft. “Despite many attempts to maximize use of the band, it remains largely unused outside of metropolitan areas,” said Louis Peraertz, vice president-policy: “This leasing model will streamline use of the vastly underutilized band without compromising the ability of public safety users to access the spectrum.”

Qualcomm highlighted HDR gaming and on-device artificial intelligence in its new 750G 5G mobile platform. Devices powered by Snapdragon 750G support multi-gigabit connections with fast upload and download speeds, said the company Tuesday. The 5G platform enables low-latency game play, multiplayer gaming and streaming from 5G cloud gaming platforms. It enables “intuitive interactions” for smart camera and video, voice translation, advanced AI-based imaging and AI-enhanced gaming experiences, it said. Its 4.0 trillion operations per second is a 20% improvement from the Snapdragon 730G, it said.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology extended through March 31 a waiver of the push notification requirement for fixed and mode II personal/portable TV white space devices, set to expire Sept. 30, said an order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The original waiver was approved in an August 2015 order on Part 15 rules.