CTIA applauds the FCC for wrapping up the world’s first high-band auction on Tuesday (see 1905280063), said Scott Bergmann, senior vice president-regulatory affairs. “We’re now one step closer to securing our nation’s 5G leadership,” he said Wednesday. “The 24 and 28 GHz bands will play a critical role in U.S. 5G deployments, and the conclusion of these auctions is an important milestone in the FCC’s 5GFast plan.”

The Utilities Technology Council reported on meetings with aides to all FCC members, except Chairman Ajit Pai, on the importance of the 6 GHz band (see 1905200048) to its members (see here, here, here and here). Critical infrastructure companies use the band for “safe, reliable and secure delivery of essential services,” UTC said in docket 18-295: “Owing to the criticality of these services, their microwave systems are designed, built, and maintained to operate at extremely high standards for reliability and low latency. Potential interference from unlicensed operations represents an unreasonable risk to the performance of these microwave systems in the 6 GHz band, and the parties explained that interference must be prevented rather than fixed after the fact.” The agency is examining Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use of the band (see 1903190050).

Gov. Bill Anoatubby and other Chickasaw Nation officials met FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on spectrum issues, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-20: “The parties discussed the importance of the local priority filing window for tribal nations in the Transforming the 2.5 GHz Band proceeding and noted that there should be a similar opportunity for tribal nations to access spectrum in the” C-band.

The Department of Homeland Security's publishing a fact sheet earlier this month about its abilities under the Preventing Emerging Threats Act to counter threats from unmanned aircraft systems seems aimed at deterring rogue drone operations by making the agency's authority "crystal clear and better known," the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation blogged Tuesday. It said such activities as disrupting or seizing control have been "fairly common" by federal enforcement authorities though "not ... talked about openly." It said federal law enforcement authorities remain exempt from Communications Act bars related to jamming and spoofing.

The 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should reject appeal of a lower court’s ruling including a finding that FirstNet is exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests (see 1903070016), the Commerce Department said in a Tuesday brief (in Pacer). Local news publication VTDigger seeks appeal of the decision by the U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont. “The district court correctly concluded that plaintiffs’ challenge to FirstNet’s response to its FOIA requests should be dismissed because Congress exempted FirstNet from the requirements of FOIA,” Commerce said. “Plaintiffs offer no basis for disregarding the statute’s plain text.” The court was right to conclude that Commerce and NTIA “reasonably concluded, and adequately explained, that they were unlikely to have any responsive records to plaintiffs’ FOIA requests based on the specific nature of the records sought,” the department said. “Where the agency can reasonably determine from the face of the specific request that it is unlikely to possess any responsive records, the ‘method[] which can be reasonably expected to produce the information requested,’ … may be no search at all.” The 2nd Circuit also should affirm the lower court’s finding that VTDigger lacked standing to claim the government violated Section 208 of the 2002 E-Government Act by failing to conduct and publish a privacy impact assessment for the FirstNet state plan portal accessed by state officials, the department said. “Plaintiffs have not explained why the failure to make a privacy impact assessment public would ‘present a material risk of harm to the underlying concrete interest Congress sought to protect’ in Section 208,” it said. “Even assuming arguendo that plaintiffs have standing to bring a Section 208 claim, there is no basis to remand the claim for additional review because the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network is not a government-owned and operated network and thus, is not subject to” Section 208 requirements.

The Rural Wireless Association's advocacy for reconsideration of geographic licensing for upper microwave flexible use service licenses in the 37, 39 and 47 GHz bands should have been brought in a timely filed petition to the spectrum frontier report and order, not in comments to a docket about developing auction procedures for the band, Hughes said in a docket 19-59 posting Tuesday. It said the RWA comments should be dismissed as a late-filed petition for reconsideration. RWA didn't comment.

The FCC Wireless Bureau granted E-911 location accuracy waiver requests to multiple small wireless providers serving rural areas. The petitioners said public safety answering points in their areas either can’t receive and use Phase II E-911 location data or haven’t requested that service, the bureau said in a Friday order in docket 07-114. Each waiver ends six months after the petitioner receives a request for Phase II location data from a PSAP, and is conditioned on the petitioner notifying the FCC within 30 days of receipt of a valid request. It denied a request for a blanket waiver of Section 20.18(i) by NTCA, which said the issues raised by the petitioners applied broadly to all similarly situated rural wireless operators. The bureau said it wants only individual waiver requests. Also, the FCC granted a T-Mobile request to withdraw another waiver petition.

Bidding has concluded in Auction 102, the FCC’s sale of 24 GHz spectrum for 5G, said an FCC release Tuesday. Along with Auction 101 -- the 28 GHz auction completed in January -- the FCC “has now completed its first set of high-band airwaves auctions to make spectrum available for 5G wireless, Internet of Things, and other advanced spectrum-based services,” the announcement said. “The successful conclusion of our nation’s first two high-band flexible, mobile-use spectrum auctions is a critical step,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in the release. Bidding in Auction 102 ended at 5 p.m. Tuesday, and raised more than $2 billion in gross bids, it said, adding that bidders won 2,904 of the 2,909 licenses on offer. Auction 101 raised $702.6 million in gross bids with bidders winning 2,965 of the 3,072 licenses offered. A public notice with detailed results for Auction 102 will be available “in a few days” the release said. Auction 101’s results have remained nonpublic but a PN on them will also be released “soon,” the announcement said. Auction 103, which involves spectrum from the upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands, will start Dec. 10.

Officials from the Communications Workers of America, Public Knowledge and CTC Technology & Energy said they spoke with an aide to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on T-Mobile/Sprint’s latest commitments, unveiled May 20 (see 1905200051). “The commitments and conditions do nothing to address CWA’s concerns about the impact of this merger on T-Mobile and Sprint workers and consumers,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-197: “The merger will still result in elimination of 30,000 U.S. jobs as the new T-Mobile shuts down duplicative retail stores and consolidates headquarters functions. T-Mobile has made no written, verifiable commitments to the FCC to protect jobs.” The officials also said the companies’ “rural promises are overstated and don’t hold up to scrutiny.” T-Mobile didn't comment.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau extended the construction period for four 700 MHz trunked public safety stations licensed by Westchester County, New York. It granted the county’s petition to extend the period through Nov. 20, 2023; two had previously ended Nov. 20, 2018, and the others were to end July 29 this year. “The County is understandably reluctant to finalize the design of its combined 700/800 MHz system until it becomes clear whether and how the design would have to be crafted to account for the potential loss of the County’s T-Band channels,” the bureau said. Also Friday, the bureau granted Fairmont (North Carolina) Rural Fire Department’s petition to reinstate its license for WQJL499, which the department said it inadvertently let lapse. The bureau viewed the mistake as “a de minimus error.” In two separate orders related to call signs, the bureau denied reconsideration petitions by the Honolulu Police Department and Lawrence County, New York. Honolulu sought reversal of the FCC's placing its license for WRAH381 on termination-pending status due to the police department failing to meet construction and notification requirements. But the reconsideration petition “was untimely filed,” the bureau said. St. Lawrence County asked the bureau to reconsider terminating its license for WQZG446 due to similarly missed deadlines, and to extend its buildout deadline. The county seemed to ignore rather than accidentally miss the commission’s rule for time extensions, the bureau said.