The U.S. is tied with China as the leader in 5G readiness, CTIA and Analysys Mason reported. The same firm ranked the U.S. third a year ago. CTIA urged the FCC to reallocate more mid-band spectrum for 5G. The U.S. leads on the availability of low- and high-band spectrum, the report said. “We can’t be complacent as the 5G race has really just begun,” said CTIA President Meredith Baker. “We must redouble our efforts to combat the 5G ambitions and investments by China and others.” Analysys Mason predicts that by 2020, some 80 operators in more than 40 countries will provide 5G service.

Because of evolving politics, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett said T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint looks more likely to fail than be approved by DOJ and the FCC. Moffett cited the 16 states that appear poised to sue to block the deal. The politics matter, he told investors Tuesday: “If the DOJ and FCC approve the transaction, the approval would almost certainly be branded as both ‘Republican’ and ‘pro-business/anti-consumer.’” Moffett said he previously pegged approval as 50 percent likely. Moffett said the odds may be even lower than his revision down to 33 percent, but a lot of questions about the politics remain. Sprint's price has dropped from a high of $6.44, to $5.62 on Tuesday, indicating the market also is betting against approval, he said.

A Havasupai leader told FCC officials the tribe needs certainty on educational broadband service rules. Using an EBS license provided on special temporary authority, the tribe in partnership with MuralNet built an LTE network that brought “for the first time” high-speed internet access to Supai, Arizona, “the most remote community in the continental” U.S., said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-120. The Havasupai are “eager to launch additional educational, health, criminal justice and economic programs to meet critical community needs -- but cannot do so until the FCC takes action on their permanent application for an EBS license, which has been pending since April 24, 2018,” it said. A tribal representative, the Water and Power Law Group, MuralNet, Voqal and Mobile Beacon attended. They met aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks and with Wireless Bureau staff.

Broadcom told the Office of Engineering and Technology that unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band presents little risk to fixed service receivers, the topic of an ongoing FCC inquiry (see 1903190050). Broadcom shared with the OET staff its research on “the characteristics of Fixed Service receivers and, specifically, these receivers’ available link margin, and the relationship between various Fixed Service use cases and available link margin,” said a filing in docket 18-295 posted Monday. “Any meaningful interference to 6 GHz licensees is extremely unlikely due to the complementary radiofrequency and operational characteristics of Fixed Service and unlicensed RLAN [radio local access network] operations.”

S&P Global Ratings upgraded Verizon’s ratings outlook to positive from stable based on debt reduction and improving metrics in its wireless business. The upgrade reflects Verizon’s “demonstrated commitment to debt reduction over the past several years, which was further accelerated by the implementation of U.S. tax reform in early 2018, and improvements in wireless service revenue and total revenue trends,” S&P said Monday. But risks remain, S&P said: “Potential debt-financed acquisitions, spectrum purchases, and higher levels of capital spending on network upgrades to support growth in data and video consumption could constrain near-term leverage improvement.”

The Association of Global Automakers and Panasonic urged an FCC NPRM on the future of the 5.9 GHz band. Meeting with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, the two discussed both cellular vehicle to everything and dedicated short-range communications and “the need for long-term policy that provides certainty for both public and private sector entities seeking to invest in the deployment of V2X technology,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 13-49. They “emphasized the need for a balanced, data-driven approach, that should be addressed through rulemaking” and the importance of interoperability and coexistence. “The parties discussed the extent to which both V2X technologies propose an evolutionary pathway forward that would improve traffic safety dramatically.”

The Navy plans to start using FirstNet across U.S. installations, per a February memo publicized Monday by AT&T's Chris Sambar, senior vice president-AT&T/FirstNet. Military interoperability “remains a vexing issue,” Sambar wrote: “While DOD leaders recognize they’ll never again fight alone, they don’t yet have all the solutions for coalition operations and communications. But we’re seeing forward motion.” U.S. military bases house an estimated 150,000 first responders, but emergency response personnel generally maintain their own infrastructure, he said. “Given that those teams’ surrounding civilian communities often rely on military first responders, it makes sense to further connect the state, local, tribal and other entities under the same communications network and platform.” A guidance memo by Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said the Navy and Marine Corps installation commands will “engage with FirstNet agents to initiate the development of each installations public safety communications data interface and interoperability requirements.” The Navy "must align with their planning actions and ensure no technology gap materializes within its public safety communications architecture supporting the [Navy] first responders and their mutual aid partners on and off its installations,” it said. The memo is "a promising first step toward eventual procurement, deployment and management of FirstNet-based services," said Mike Leff, vice president-defense, AT&T Public Sector. Questions arose at the March FirstNet board meeting on progress in selling the service to federal agencies (see 1903200050). The General Service Administration announced last week that AT&T and Verizon completed their operational business support system testing under the new federal Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract. That lets the carriers “accept and process task orders or service orders, provision or deliver services, and bill for services,” GSA said.

T-Mobile said it’s installing magenta-colored privacy cubes for customers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and its hometown Seattle. “You can use your smartphone in peace, even on the streets of some of the busiest cities in America,” it said Friday. Customers will need to use a new T-Mobile Phone BoothE app to access the booths. T-Mobile said initially the booths will be available at one location in each city, with limited hours.

The FCC should forget about toll-free texting and zero in on robocalls, blogged Seth Cooper, senior fellow at the Free State Foundation. Commissioners unanimously approved a declaratory ruling and NPRM on text enabling of toll-free numbers in June (see 1806070021). There were nearly 5 billion robocalls in February, and likely “zero instances of toll-free phone numbers being enabled to receive text messages without authorization by business subscribers,” Cooper wrote Friday.

The FCC unanimously imposed a $235,668 penalty against Aura Holdings of Wisconsin for allegedly failing to provide accurate information. It was what the agency proposed last April (see 1804090007). Aura filed “false and misleading information in 10 different change-in-ownership applications using the Commission’s Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) system” and made “false and misleading statements” to an FCC employee over four months, the agency said: “By misleading the Commission employee, Aura delayed the repair of an extinguished light on an antenna structure, which posed an air navigation safety hazard.” The company also didn’t respond to an order directing it to answer questions, the FCC said. Aura didn’t comment.