At the end of 2024, just over 651,000 structures supported wireless infrastructure across the U.S., the Wireless Infrastructure Association said in a report Wednesday. WIA said that last year, the wireless industry spent more than $10.8 billion “expanding network capacity and coverage, excluding expenditures on spectrum.” Total wireless infrastructure investments, “including construction, maintenance and operations,” were more than $63 billion. The report said 368,750 workers were employed in the U.S. wireless infrastructure sector at the end of 2024.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau agreed to give UL Solutions the extra time it asked for to complete its initial work as lead administrator in the agency’s voluntary cyber trust mark program, extending the deadline 41 days to June 13 (see 2505050040). “We find an additional extension of time to be reasonable given the highly technical and complex issues being considered, the significant industry coordination involved, and the public interest benefits of ensuring the Commission receives complete and thorough recommendations,” the bureau said in an order Tuesday (docket 23-239).
SpaceX's measurement of EchoStar's use of the 2 GHz band "speaks for itself," according to a SpaceX filing (docket 22-212) posted Wednesday. SpaceX said that its data shows that EchoStar has left 95% or more of the band vacant and that EchoStar hasn't provided any data to show otherwise. That means it's up to the FCC to determine whether EchoStar has satisfied its band-specific commitments. If the commission says EchoStar is in compliance, the low activity levels in the band warrant reconsideration of using population-based terrestrial buildout requirements, said SpaceX, which has petitioned the FCC for greater access to the 2 GHz band (see 2402230027).
Nearly 50 WISPA members were in Washington on Wednesday to meet with policymakers on issues important to wireless ISPs, the group said. On Capitol Hill, WISPA had scheduled more than 60 meetings with members of Congress and staff from both chambers, said a news release. “WISPs provide broadband to over 9 million Americans, primarily in unserved, under-resourced, and Tribal areas that too often fall outside the reach of traditional providers,” WISPA said: “By leveraging a mix of unlicensed spectrum, shared spectrum such as [citizens broadband radio service] and 6 GHz, and increasingly fiber, WISPs have long pioneered flexible, cost-effective broadband solutions -- often in places no one else would serve.” Matt Mandel, WISPA's vice president-government affairs, said WISPs are closing deployment gaps “faster and more affordably than legacy providers.”
EchoStar, parent of Dish Wireless, filed at the FCC on Tuesday a list of cellsites where it offers 5G. EchoStar redacted the entire list and asked for confidential treatment. The report demonstrates that EchoStar has satisfied a commitment to the FCC to deploy at least 24,000 5G sites by June 14, said the filing in docket 22-212.
Comments are due June 6, replies July 7, on a Further NPRM on wireless location accuracy, said a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. The FNPRM, which commissioners approved 4-0 in March (see 2503270042), focuses on the importance of dispatchable location, an FCC priority for the last 10 years.
AT&T is prepared for the start of hurricane season, the carrier said Monday. It has a new 45-foot custom-built landing craft "capable of transporting trucks, network assets and other solutions,” and public safety agencies subscribed to FirstNet “have 24/7 access to a dedicated nationwide fleet of more than 180 deployable network assets,” the company said.
The U.S. is “poorly positioned to counter China’s effort to win the wireless future,” said new CTIA President and CEO Ajit Pai in a weekend opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Carriers lack enough licensed spectrum to keep up with expected consumer demand, wrote Pai, who served as FCC chairman during the first Trump presidency. “Thanks to AI, 5G home broadband and other emerging technologies, traffic on wireless networks is expected to triple by 2029.”
UL Solutions asked the FCC to further extend the deadline from May 3 to June 13 to complete its initial work as lead administrator in the agency’s voluntary cyber trust mark program (see 2503040062). The Public Safety Bureau previously extended the original March deadline by 60 days (see 2503050025).
Competitive Carriers Association representatives spoke with aides to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about the agency's broadband data collection (BDC) “and the importance of an improved mobile mapping process in general” as it moves forward on a 5G Fund. Representatives of Nex-Tech Wireless, Ookla and Cellcom/Nsight were also at the meeting.