LightShed’s Walter Piecyk told investors Verizon faces problems on spectrum. “Verizon’s spectrum position has been a nagging concern for investors and it’s likely to persist in 2020,” he said Monday: “Verizon’s current network strategy leans heavily on small cell densification and [millimeter-wave] spectrum. However, the early performance of mmWave spectrum has been worse than promised and the pace of small cell deployments is slower than expected.” The carrier continues to convert its CDMA spectrum to LTE, not 5G, “to maintain and improve its network performance,” he said. Verizon didn’t comment.

No one objected to a study by Jeff Reed of Virginia Tech and Reed Engineering on sharing the C band with fixed point-to-multipoint operations (see 1907020061) when the FCC took comment last year, said officials with the Open Technology Institute at New America and Public Knowledge, in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. Reed said “even after a repack of earth stations, every single megahertz of the ongoing [fixed satellite service] portion of C-band can be coordinated by local ISPs in 80 percent of the U.S. where more than 80 million Americans live, communities that are disproportionately rural and underserved,” the groups said in a filing in docket 18-122, posted Monday: “This is a perfect opportunity for the Commission to dedicate not only taxpayer dollars via the Rural Development Opportunity Fund, but also ‘spectrum as infrastructure’ to dramatically narrow the rural broadband divide.” Commenting on an auction, the groups said the FCC “has no legal authority to require or specify any incentive or ‘acceleration’ payments to C-band incumbents that extend beyond actual and reasonable relocation costs.” Making 280 MHz of C-band spectrum available for 5G “as soon as possible is a national priority,” said Verizon. It has no qualms about incentives for incumbents: The Communications Act “provides ample legal authority, and Emerging Technologies offers a well-established model, for auction winners to pay incumbents, including expenses and incentive payments for accelerated clearing.” T-Mobile officials met staff from the FCC Office of General Counsel to argue for incentive payments. “The record supports satellite operators receiving some compensation for transitioning out of the C-band and requiring winning bidders to make those payments as a condition to receiving their licenses,” the carrier said: The FCC “is on solid legal footing” to impose that requirement.

Crown Castle representatives told Wireless Bureau staff the FCC should act on CTIA and Wireless Infrastructure Association petitions seeking more changes to wireless infrastructure rules designed to accelerate siting of towers and other 5G facilities (see 1910300027). There's “uncertainty and delay associated with the inclusion of conditions in [eligible facilities requests] permits that are unrelated to the health and safety of the modification, are often impossible or impracticable to accept, and the implications of not complying with the conditions,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 19-250: “Clarification of the Commission’s rules implementing Section 6409 of the Spectrum Act is beneficial to all parties.”

Competitive telcos support T-Mobile buying Sprint, with Dish Network entering as a fourth national carrier, Incompas said in a Friday amicus brief (in Pacer) at U.S. District Court in Washington. “This creative settlement not only remedies the effects of what would otherwise be an increase in market concentration, but affirmatively improves the competitive conditions in that market to boot,” it told the court conducting the Tunney Act review. Dish will likely “provide wholesale capacity to carriers and enterprises at low prices reflecting its low marginal costs,” Incompas said.

Suburbs are the place to be for fewest wireless network problems, with urban areas experiencing the most, J.D. Power reported Thursday. Managing customer expectations for speed and reliability is important because user perceptions of speed on high-band vs. low-band frequencies vary, said analyst Ian Greenblatt. Multi-tier 5G strategies can address that “if providers properly set those expectations against the reality of the real-world speeds.” Verizon ranked first with fewest problems per 100 interactions in all six regions.

T-Mobile raised technical concerns about Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute's November report on the potential threat of 5G on the C band to radio altimeters (RAs). It “contains numerous technical and analytical errors that lead to inaccurate conclusions and thereby greatly overstates the potential protection required,” T-Mobile said in FCC docket 18-122, posted Thursday: Don't "overprotect RA use of the 4200-4400 MHz band at the potential cost of limiting full access to the C-band for terrestrial use.” The institute didn’t comment.

The tribal window to apply for 2.5 GHz licenses was a big topic last month at a conference the American Indian Policy Institute (AIPI) hosted at Arizona State University with the National Tribal Telecommunications Association and Gila River Telecommunications, AIPI filed, posted Wednesday in FCC docket 18-120. AIP said tribes are grateful for the opportunity to get free spectrum licenses, but the 2.5 GHz band won’t solve the digital divide in their areas. Attendees opposed “adoption of a rural Tribal Lands definition, which excludes Tribal lands that are not located in an urbanized area with a population of less than 50,000 people,” AIPI said: “This decision abrogates the Commission’s federal trust responsibility to all Tribal Nations -- which applies regardless of population density -- in that it arbitrarily and disproportionately affects Tribal Nations and their respective citizens and communities.” All future spectrum opportunities “should be acted upon consistent with the trust responsibility the Commission has with all Tribal Nations,” the institute said. The 2.5 GHz band is also limited, the filing said: “A Tribal Priority should be analyzed for extension to all commercial licenses, given the communications challenges facing Tribal Nations.” The FCC’s six-month window opens Feb. 3 (see 2001140059).

NTIA recommended protections for DOD mobile ground-based radar systems operating below 3.5 GHz that need safeguarding from citizens broadband radio service interference. In a letter to FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Don Stockdale and Office of Engineering and Technology acting Chief Ronald Repasi posted Thursday in docket 17-258, NTIA said there are 40 of those mobile radar system locations. It said for some, NTIA will maintain a list of locations for CBRS spectrum access system operators to use. It said for others, dynamic protection areas that are always activated would be a way of protecting them, as it would limit maximum aggregate received power from CBRS devices at the radar antenna aperture. It asked the FCC offices to act to effectuate that protection.

Motorola Solutions is developing a 900 MHz private broadband network. It “will offer critical infrastructure entities high-power and interoperable communications,” said the company Wednesday. Last summer, the FCC took comment on a proposal to reconfigure the band to allow for broadband (see 1907030028).

Microsoft officials met FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly on the company’s Rural Airband Initiative and how “White Spaces technologies can provide broadband access to underserved and rural Americans,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-165. Microsoft said the agency should act on its May request for a Further NPRM (see 1905030050). Attendees included ex-Commissioner Robert McDowell, now at Cooley.