T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon make up the largest reach in the wireless market across the country, a report from Ookla found Tuesday. "Of course, much of their strategies have been dictated by their spectrum holdings -- particularly how much mid-band spectrum they were able to acquire," the report said. T-Mobile has the largest percentage of 5G users in urban and rural markets, it said, noting that the company has been the "most vocal" about its rural market expansion efforts. Ookla said more efforts are underway to expand 5G coverage in rural markets through the FCC's 5G Fund for Rural America.

UScellular filed a response to a December data request from the Wireless Bureau (see 2412270031) probing T-Mobile’s proposed purchase of much of UScellular’s wireless business, including some spectrum. Parts of the response were redacted. “UScellular’s spectrum and network cost challenges have limited UScellular’s relative competitive presence in its footprint,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-286. “These limitations have resulted in UScellular lagging behind its competitors and being increasingly unable to catch up to the network quality they offer.” The carrier noted that it has “substantially less spectrum depth than its competitors within its footprint,” with about 70 MHz “of aggregable spectrum below 4 GHz -- half or less than” than its biggest rivals. The company’s 600, 700 and 850 MHz licenses “cannot be aggregated and used as efficiently as possible due to mobile device limitations,” the filing said. While its devices “have the hardware to support the 600 MHz, 700 MHz, and 850 MHz bands individually, they generally lack the hardware (such as more antennas) to support spectrum aggregation.” The company said it also holds “substantial non-contiguous blocks of spectrum, particularly in the 700 MHz, AWS, and PCS bands.”

Viaero Wireless asked the FCC to extend the deadline for removing and replacing Huawei equipment in its network from April 6 to Oct. 6. It noted that the FCC still isn’t making available additional funding for its Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program approved by Congress in December (see 2412240036). “Viaero has exhausted substantial company resources to fund as much of the project as possible on its own, when only 39.5% of the funds were made available by Congress,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-89. Viaero’s vendor “was forced to reduce the number of tower crews available to work on this project, hampering progress,” it said. A lack of funding “also forced Viaero to cancel purchase orders for a substantial amount of equipment. Now that full funding is available, Viaero is working to place equipment orders, which may not be delivered until mid to late 2025.”

Policymakers and the FCC, once focused on universal coverage, now must make spectrum decisions around consumers' and industry's capacity and performance needs, CableLabs Vice President-Technology Policy Mark Walker wrote last week. The nation's "overwhelming reliance" on Wi-Fi for carrying consumer data traffic is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, he said. The wider-bandwidth Wi-Fi channels that are coming to support new applications need more contiguous unlicensed spectrum bands, he said. "Without more unlicensed spectrum, Wi-Fi performance will degrade as more devices, applications and users come online." He added that diminished performance will start in dense commercial and residential areas where there are high concentrations of devices and users.

The FCC demanded a response from Luminys within 10 days to its determination that the company was selling equipment from Dahua, which is on the FCC’s “covered list” of providers of unsecure gear. Luminys faces revocation of equipment authorizations the FCC previously approved. Luminys Systems describes itself as the U.S.-based subsidiary of Foxlink, a Taiwan-based company, the agency said Thursday. Foxlink announced its acquisition of Dahua Technology USA last month from a Chinese company, Zhejiang Dahua Technology, the notice said. “By Luminys’s own public statements, Luminys is marketing products that were produced by Dahua, does not expect that these products will be manufactured through Foxlink’s own supply chains until March 2025, and does not expect to stop selling Dahua-manufactured products entirely until December 2025,” the FCC said: “That Luminys had not sought equipment authorization from the Commission prior to Foxlink’s acquisition of Dahua Technology USA also supports the tentative conclusion that the ultimate source of the equipment is Dahua Technology Company, an entity identified on the Covered List.” The “show cause” order, by the acting chiefs of the Public Safety Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, was posted in Friday’s Daily Digest.

General radio operators asked the FCC to change its rules to allow internet linking of general mobile radio service repeaters (see 2502120027).

The Alaska Remote Carrier Coalition told the FCC that offering flexibility and allowing companies to take individualized approaches are critical to wireless service in the state, the subject of a Further NPRM on the Alaska Connect Fund that FCC commissioners approved in November (see 2411050002). Key factors that distinguish Alaska from the Lower 48 states and affect wireless deployment "include the middle mile economic challenges, logistical challenges not faced anywhere else in the country, and the vast geographies that must be traversed to touch where people live, work and play,” the coalition said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-328.

The wireless industry must move quickly to address post-quantum computing security, 5G Americas stressed in a paper posted Thursday. “A cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) has the potential to break traditional public key cryptography, a cornerstone of internet and mobile network security,” it said. Industry should start planning now for migration to a post-quantum world, the paper said: “As a first step, start by educating key executives and stakeholders on the urgency and risks. Develop a migration plan, conducting a cryptographic inventory, including security protocols and versions, and a quantum risk assessment to migrate by priority.”

The FCC said Thursday that Andrew, Federated Wireless, Google and Sony have been approved for additional five-year terms as spectrum access system administrators in the citizens broadband radio service band. Andrew, the newest name, is an entity owned by Amphenol, which recently purchased assets from CommScope, including its CBRS operations (see 2502040037). Federated, Google and Sony were the first to be approved as administrators, and their initial five-year terms expired in January (see 2501100025).

General radio operators have asked the FCC to change its rules to allow internet linking of general mobile radio service repeaters. The FCC imposed a prohibition in 2017 but rarely enforced the rule until last year, said a petition posted Wednesday in docket 15-178. “This enforcement has significantly impacted the GMRS community, disrupting emergency communication networks, community nets, and disaster response efforts that had been successfully operating for nearly a decade,” it said.