Representatives of T-Mobile and Grain met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to discuss their pending low-band transaction and ask for agency approval, according to a filing posted this week in docket 25-178. Grain Management agreed to buy T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio (see 2503210033).
Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Patrick Halley met with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty to raise concerns about EchoStar’s sale of spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX, but he didn’t oppose the transactions per se, according to a filing posted Wednesday in docket 25-303 and others. Association members and “the entire wireless infrastructure ecosystem are being harmed” as a result of “EchoStar’s threatened and actual abandonment of its obligations,” the filing said.
CTIA representatives stressed the importance to FCC staff of the 911 Location Technologies Test Bed to establish “achievable and enhanced” horizontal benchmarks for calls to 911 and “assess whether text-to-911 location accuracy benchmarks are appropriate.” The group met last week with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, according to a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-114. “Innovations in commercial technologies have yielded the most accurate and actionable location information ever available to support public safety’s response to wireless 911 callers,” it said. The wireless industry remains “optimistic that evolving technologies will deliver location information with wireless 911 calls that is even more actionable to help first responders save lives.”
Cisco Systems responded Tuesday to the FCC's proposed upper C-band auction by tying it to U.S. progress on AI. Comments on the C-band NPRM, which commissioners approved in November (see 2511240048), were due Tuesday in docket 25-59. “Expanding licensed spectrum availability, especially in globally standardized spectrum bands, is essential to the future 6G AI-native networks,” Cisco said. The company urged rules for the band that are “harmonized with the Lower C-band (3.7-3.98 GHz)” to “facilitate rapid deployment.”
Theodora Scarato, director of the wireless radiation and electromagnetic fields program at Environmental Health Sciences, said the Trump administration is right to renew focus on the health effects of 5G (see 2601160039). Hundreds of scientists and medical doctors “are calling for stronger safeguards to protect children, based on an ever growing body of evidence showing biological harm, particularly to the nervous system, reproductive organs, and immune system,” Scarato said last week in an emailed statement. Current U.S. exposure limits “date back to 1996 and consider only short-term heating effects, not the long-term, cumulative exposures children experience today.”
The RAIN Alliance submitted an additional technical study to the FCC on alleged interference from NextNav’s proposal that the commission reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to enable a “terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services. The study, conducted by LS telcom, “as well as studies submitted by other commenters, demonstrate that NextNav’s petition and follow-up technical submissions are flawed and disingenuous,” the alliance said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-240.
The fourth meeting of the FCC's World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee will be held Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, the agency announced Friday. The group last met in April in its preparation for next year’s conference (see 2504150032).
An FCC order that ends funding for Wi-Fi hot spots and the associated wireless internet services off school and library premises will take effect Feb. 20, said a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. The order was approved 2-1 in September, with Commissioner Anna Gomez dissenting (see 2509300051). The order found “that the FCC lacked legal authority for this expansion and that the agency failed to properly justify its decision.”
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought comment Friday on Piper Networks' request for a waiver of rules allowing wider use of its enhanced transit location system. The waiver would let Piper obtain equipment authorization for its ultra-wideband train positioning system as fixed-wireless infrastructure in the Greater New York City and Boston areas and in Harris County, Texas. The system already operates under the FCC’s handheld UWB device rules. Piper requests that its system be allowed to operate in the 3.248-4.990 GHz band in the same areas where it’s already authorized to operate. Comments are due Feb. 16, replies March 2, in docket 19-246.
NextNav is challenging the findings of a technical study that Neology filed last month (see 2512160017) on the risks posed to band incumbents if the FCC approves NextNav's proposal to use the 900 MHz band for a “terrestrial complement” to GPS. In a filing posted Friday in docket 25-110, NextNav said it stands by its earlier analysis that found minimal interference risks.