Keysight Technologies asked for a waiver allowing it to market cellular vehicle-to-everything technology in the 5.9 GHz band, pending final rules for the band. It wants to market technology for roadside and onboard units “serving the public interest by enhancing roadway safety,” said a filing Friday in docket 19-138. Keysight said it’s designing C-V2X products through a German subsidiary at a plant there. “There is good cause to grant the waiver requested here, as doing so is both in the public interest given benefits of the technology and in line with prior decisions allowing operations under waiver of the same rules,” Keysight said.

The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment Friday on a GeoLinks request that it be allowed to give up some local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) licenses in return for others from the commission’s inventory. GeoLinks proposes to use federal funding to serve some 47,000 locations across Arizona, California and Nevada that now lack access to high-speed broadband. The request involves 51 LMDS licenses that GeoLinks holds -- nine A-block and 42 B-block. Under GeoLinks’ proposal, 32 of the licenses would be modified, and 19 relinquished. “GeoLinks’ current LMDS holdings and the Commission’s unassigned LMDS licenses in inventory are both geographically scattered across the country, which has given rise to a fragmented band map that is underdeveloped, difficult to fully utilize, and less attractive to potential market entrants,” GeoLinks said in a March filing. GeoLinks said it would give up more licenses, markets and MHz-POPs than it would receive but consolidate license blocks “gaining contiguous markets that will result in more efficient and economic deployment targeted to rural and underserved areas in GeoLinks’ core service areas.” Comments are due June 17, replies July 2, in docket 24-150.

Ted Miller, co-founder and former CEO of Crown Castle, sent an open letter to Crown Castle shareholders Friday urging them to elect a revised slate of board members. CEO Jay Brown stepped down in January after Elliott Investment Management called for "significant changes" in Crown Castle's executive and board leadership (see 2311280062). Last month, Crown Castle named Steven Moskowitz, a former American Tower executive, president and CEO (see 2404120051). Now at Boots Capital Management, Miller said hiring Moskowitz wasn’t enough. “The last few weeks have exposed us to the candid feedback and insights of Crown Castle's largest shareholders,” he said: “We heard repeatedly an overwhelming concern and frustration with the Company's performance, slipshod governance, and lack of strategic planning.” Agreeing to sell fiber and naming Moskowitz were “worthy moves,” but shareholders “are telling us they want Boots to help drive the necessary changes by replacing decades-old directors responsible for this quagmire and once again focusing Crown Castle on the operations of its core tower business,” Miller said. Shareholders vote Wednesday. The company urged shareholders to vote for management's nominees. Miller “is attempting to replace four of the Company’s highly qualified nominees with his own nominees, whose skill sets and perspectives are not additive and do not reflect current industry dynamics and the competitive ecosystem,” Crown Castle said in a statement. Boots Capital's nominees are Miller, tower veteran Chuck Green, Tripp Rice and David Wheeler, all of whom have ties to Miller. They would replace broad members Ari Fitzgerald, Cindy Christy, Rob Bartolo and Kevin Kabat.

Incompas supports the FCC’s proposed 5G Fund but agrees with others who argue the agency should wait on making awards until after funding is released for the broadband access, equity and deployment program, a filing posted Friday in docket 20-32 said. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated an order on the fund in March (see 2403200071). Allowing NTIA to complete the BEAD allocation “will give the Commission a better understanding of where gaps in wireless 5G service exist and will help ensure that funding efforts are not duplicated and that USF funding will reach the areas where there is still a funding need,” Incompas said.

NTIA is looking at how lidar data can be used for dynamic spectrum sharing, a Friday blog post said. NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences recently held a technical seminar to share best practices for using lidar data in spectrum modeling, NTIA said. “By measuring the time it takes for a laser pulse to return to its sending point, a lidar system measures and records the shapes and heights of buildings, trees, and other surface features to create a very precise three-dimensional model of an environment,” the blog post said: “Spectrum sharing relies on these propagation models to predict signal strength between two points, such as a cell phone and a government system like an air traffic control radar.”

Continental Automotive sought several clarifications to a waiver the company received last year authorizing a tire pressure monitoring system operating in the 315 and 433 MHz bands (see 2312190080). The technical changes are intended “to ensure clarity with respect to the equipment authorization process and implementation of the Order, and in light of the fact that Continental wishes to move forward now,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 22-382.

Nex-Tech Wireless met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about the company’s failed attempts to submit data to the FCC through the broadband data collection portal (see 2404090051). To the best of Nex-Tech’s knowledge, no one has successfully submitted a bulk mobile availability challenge to the BDC portal and only 18 corrections to the mobile availability map were made using the FCC’s Speed Test app, according to a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-32. “One can conclude that the challenge process for mobile broadband availability is not functioning and cannot be characterized to be user-friendly,” Nex-Tech said: “The fact that no other party has succeeded in submitting a bulk challenge is evidence that the challenge process is broken.”

Qualcomm representatives discussed the company’s support of proposed FCC rules allowing unmanned aircraft use of the 5030-5091 MHz band, meeting with aides to Commissioners Geoffrey Starks, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington. Qualcomm previously met with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel on an order before commissioners (see 2405080032). Qualcomm discussed “the anticipated explosive growth of low-flying UA operations” and “ensuring that aircraft (particularly small UAs and, in the future, air taxis) can avoid in-flight collisions with other aircraft, infrastructure, and other objects.” The filing was made Tuesday in docket 22-323.

The National Sheriffs’ Association met with aides to all the FCC commissioners, except Anna Gomez, on the group’s opposition to giving FirstNet use of the 4.9 GHz band through a sharing agreement (see 2401190067). “Sheriffs are the primary law enforcement users of the 4.9 GHz band,” said a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-100. Allowing FirstNet onto 4.9 GHz spectrum "would turn over the band to FirstNet’s partner, AT&T, to serve both its public safety and commercial wireless consumers,” the NSA said.

With the wireless industry pushing hard for additional spectrum, particularly in the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, which are being examined as part of the national spectrum strategy (see 2405060051), a top Verizon official said Tuesday the carrier isn’t in the market for additional spectrum. “We like the assets we have right now,” Sowmyanarayan Sampath, Verizon Consumer Group CEO, said at a MoffettNathanson investor conference. Verizon went big in the 2021 C-band auction, bidding $45.4 billion, plus $8 billion in incentive costs to satellite operators (see 2102250046). In markets where the carrier has deployed C-band it continues to see lower churn and a better mix of premium customers, Sampath said. He said Verizon has limited exposure with the loss of the affordability connectivity program, but also sees opportunities for gaining customers. “There could be an opportunity for us to get on the offensive and take some share,” he said. Verizon has “the largest collection of prepaid assets today, ranging from the discount to the mid-market, to the premium end,” he said: “We will have a service at every single price point.” About 15% of its wireless customers also buy broadband from Verizon, and it plans to double that figure, Sampath said. “We're never going to see it at the European levels of 50%, 60% convergence because the market structure is fundamentally different [in Europe] and the regulatory environment is very different there," he said. Sampath said Verizon believes it has the best U.S. wireless network, as a result of “better RF design” and “a better set of assets.” Verizon's tests show “it's a much better network,” he said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to reliability and coverage.”