Granting Dish Network its ask for a waiver of rules limiting out-of-band emissions from equipment in the 1925-2000 MHz band into the 2000-2050 MHz band and vice versa (see 1808030039) would effectively entangle its H Block and AWS-4 licenses together permanently, NTCH said in an opposition posted Monday in docket 18-237. It said its pending judicial appeal of the FCC denying its challenges to those licenses (see 1808160065) likely will mean Dish will have to rescind one or both licenses, leaving a potential new licensee "stuck with a highly impaired band" without those OOBE protections. It said instead the agency should wait for the outcome in court of its appeal before it acts on the waiver request.

The U.S. wireless market isn’t effectively competitive, the Competitive Carriers Association said in reply comments on the FCC’s biennial “Communications Marketplace Report.” CCA and NATOA were the only ones to file replies in docket 18-203, though most initial commenters argued the U.S. wireless industry is competitive (see 1807270050). “Suggestions that the market for mobile wireless service is competitive nationwide overlook the market power of AT&T and Verizon and its negative impact on competition, as well as the continuing challenges for deployment in rural and remote areas,” CCA said. “AT&T and Verizon’s combined market share is stifling mobile wireless competition.” NATOA, which filed with the National League of Cities, said local governments aren’t to blame for shortfalls in competition. “Despite the evidence of a healthy market, some commenters assert that local governments are a barrier,” the two said. “These largely unsupported assertions do not stand up to scrutiny.” NATOA and NLC said there are many areas that won’t get investments in wireless infrastructure. “Commenters suggest that shorter shot clocks, deemed granted remedies and cost-based fees, among other things, would drive additional investment throughout the country,” they said. “Outside of the context of FCC proceedings, however, there is no indication that the wireless industry has any significant plans to deploy outside of major markets.”

Neville Ray, T-Mobile chief technology officer, and others from T-Mobile and Sprint, were at the FCC last week to try to build a technical case for the proposed deal between the two companies. Ray met with FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale and aides to Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel, among others, said a filing Monday in docket 18-197. Ray said "he proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint will enable New T-Mobile to build the first broad and deep nationwide 5G network that will deliver unprecedented coverage and capacity,” the filing said. “He reviewed the variety of services and applications that could be supported by the combined company’s 5G vision -- and the associated benefits for U.S. consumers. However, he underscored that a robust, high capacity network is needed to bring this vision to reality.”

If Lenovo ships on schedule a 5G “mod” for the Motorola Moto Z3 smartphone in the U.S. early next year, it will be “the first company to provide the 5G mobile experience to customers,” said CEO Yang Yuanqing on an earnings call last week. The goal for the year ending June 30 is to “control” to under $1 billion the annual operating expenses of the Motorola business, he said. If successful, that means Lenovo will have reduced Motorola’s operating expenses by $800 million since buying it from Google for $2.91 billion nearly four years ago (see 1410300029), said Yang. Also last week, Lenovo reported sales in the quarter ended June 30 rose 19 percent to $11.9 billion as a small profit reversed a year-ago quarterly loss.

Sennheiser is asking the FCC to start allowing low-power auxiliary stations, including wireless mics, to use more bandwidth in the TV bands and 600 MHz duplex gap when they employ new technology. In a petition posted Friday, Sennheiser said existing wireless mic technology lets engineers use at most 12 such devices in a 6 MHz channel, but it and other manufacturers are developing wireless multichannel audio systems (WMAS) that combine the signals from multiple devices into a 6 MHz channel instead of giving each its own separate frequency segment. It said spreading each connected device across the full channel width, WMAS allows denser use of the channel by ending the problem of multiple receivers picking up adjacent frequencies. The company asked for amendment of a Section 74.861(e)(5) rule on low-power auxiliary stations so it defines WMAS and allows WMAS system use of 6 MHz of bandwidth when providing the same or better spectrum efficiency as conventional single-channel systems.

A federal court asked litigants to propose a briefing format by Sept. 17 for tribal challenges to a March FCC wireless infrastructure order. "Parties are strongly urged to submit a joint proposal and are reminded that the court looks with extreme disfavor on repetitious submissions and will, where appropriate, require a joint brief of aligned parties with total words not to exceed the standard allotment for a single brief," said an order (in Pacer) Friday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in United Keetoowah Band v. FCC, No. 18-1129. "Whether the parties are aligned or have disparate interests, they must provide detailed justifications for any request to file separate briefs or to exceed in the aggregate the standard word allotment."

Enough testing has been done to show existing z-axis location technology “can provide floor level vertical accuracy of within 3 meters for at least 80 percent of wireless calls,” said NextNav, which makes such tech and is headed by SiriusXM Radio ex-Chairman Gary Parsons. Parsons and other executives met Tuesday with staff for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the Public Safety Bureau, said an ex parte posted Friday in docket 07-114. The company disagreed with CTIA, which said in an Aug. 3 letter to the FCC that questions remain after test results (see 1808080016). “The public safety community has clearly communicated its desire for floor level vertical accuracy in major cities, and the body of independent test results over the past five years demonstrates that such accuracy is clearly achievable,” the company said. CTIA didn’t comment.

APCO staffers said they met with officials from the office of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the Public Safety Bureau to discuss the 4.9 GHz band's importance to public safety. APCO’s points included “the importance of preserving this band to provide public safety users with high-bandwidth, broadband communications tools to enhance mission-critical operations,” said a filing Wednesday in docket 07-100. APCO officials discussed the band at their meeting last week in Las Vegas. The FCC recently wrapped up a comment cycle on whether it should change the rules for the band, including possible sharing with commercial operators (see 1808060033).

The FCC directed local number portability administrator iconectiv to work with Inland Cellular, a small wireless carrier in the Pacific Northwest, to allow porting across a local access and transport area (LATA) boundary until Nov. 13 while it recovers from a network outage due to a power spike. Inland's "entire core network was affected, including the database that enables roaming -- the Home Location Register (HLR) -- and approximately 40,000 customers are without service," said a Wireline Bureau order in docket 95-116 and Thursday's Daily Digest. It said Inland arranged for the use of a third-party HLR to temporarily port all its subscribers’ numbers, allowing proper call routing and roaming. Inland expects it to take up to 90 days to resolve its network issue.

Sprint said the LEC Coalition "merely recycles an argument" the FCC has rejected about applying access charges to intraMTA (major trading area) traffic. "The LECs have provided no reason why the Commission should not deny their petition for declaratory ruling and/or file an amicus brief" backing reversal of a district court ruling in a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, said the group's filing, posted Thursday in FCC docket 14-228. The coalition asked the FCC not to undercut district court decisions, and to pursue a rulemaking if it seeks to let interexchange carriers route commingled traffic through Feature Group D trunks while exempting intraMTA wireless traffic from access charges (see 1808130039). "The LECs contend that the Commission’s rules currently permit them to impose access charges on IXCs delivering intraMTA calls," Sprint said. "But the Commission squarely rejected the LECs’ position" in its 2011 USF and intercarrier-compensation order, confirming prior decisions that intraMTA traffic isn't subject to access charges but to reciprocal compensation, said Sprint. It added that the district court erred in concluding FCC rules allowed LECs to charge reciprocal compensation and access charges to the traffic even though both regimes "have never been applied to the same calls."