T-Mobile filed at the FCC an annual report on the progress of its affiliate T-Mobile Puerto Rico in hardening its network through Uniendo program funding. Parts of the report, posted Wednesday in docket 18-143, were redacted. “T-Mobile is dedicated to strengthening its infrastructure and mitigating any network outages or failures following a natural disaster or emergency situation,” the carrier said: “In 2023, with the help of Stage 2 funding, T-Mobile has significantly hardened its network and increased the availability and capacity of the system to ensure a more resilient network and improve the overall customer experience.” Puerto Rico Telephone Co. also filed a redacted report, as did Liberty Mobile Puerto Rico.

Several lessons are emerging from the move to open and virtual radio access networks that can help providers that are getting started, Matt Conrod, Intel director-VRAN business development, said Wednesday during a TelecomTV webinar. One lesson is the importance of beginning early with field trials and pilot projects to gain exposure to the technology, Conrod said. “You won’t be able to wake up in 2026 and introduce VRAN like you would a traditional RAN feature -- this is network transformation,” he said. Providers should also use “proven” ORAN components, he said, noting that integration takes time. “Reuse proven components and partners who have gone through deployment at scale already,” he advised. Carriers can change their approach after the RAN is established, he said. In addition, providers should “critically assess” their capabilities for system integration and tool development, he said. “Some things, as we have found out, can only be learned at scale,” Conrod said. A recent survey by his company and Analysis Mason found that the greatest obstacles to deployments are integration costs and complexity, said Paul Miller, chief technology officer at ORAN company Wind River. Its work with Dell is helping companies reduce those costs, which are “key obstacles" to adoption of these technologies, Miller said. One key is working with experienced partners on a deployment. Such partners have launched other open networks, said Manish Singh, CTO of Dell Technologies’ Telecom Systems Business. “You want to bring in the set of partners who are actually committed to making this happen,” he added. Providers also should clearly state what they expect from their partners, he said. “Start early and get it to work,” advised Cristina Rodriguez, vice president of Intel’s Network and Edge Group. “The technology is ready today,” she said. While technology will improve, companies should recognize “we have today what we need to start,” she added. Rodriguez agreed there are things providers can learn only when they launch at scale.

5G fixed wireless access is “changing the broadband marketplace” but it needs the FCC to make more full-power, licensed, mid-band spectrum available for carriers, CTIA said in a Wednesday blog post. FWA is having “such an impact on cable’s bottom line that you’ve probably also seen their commercials attacking it -- a striking indicator that 5G home broadband is bringing real competition to cable incumbents,” CTIA said. The blog notes that the fastest growing broadband companies are all wireless carriers, led by T-Mobile. In the first three quarters of last year, FWA had 34 times more adds than cable broadband, based on reports by Leichtman Research, CTIA said. Wall Street analysts have found that nearly 20% of 5G home gross adds “are new to the broadband marketplace altogether,” the group blogged: “That’s twice what they found for the full broadband market, meaning FWA is connecting more people for the first time than cable or any other broadband service.” Spectrum is the sticking point, CTIA warned. “More spectrum will increase speeds -- we’re seeing that with the C-band allocations that have been coming online -- and allow providers to serve more Americans with more capacity.” CTIA called for a “pipeline of spectrum” starting with the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands to give consumers “an even more robust 5G for home experience, all while keeping more money in their pockets.” T-Mobile said last week it added 541,000 home internet customers in Q4 and 2.1 million for the year (see 2401250076). Verizon reported 375,000 fixed wireless adds for the quarter, bringing its total to more than 3 million (see 2401230071).

A representative of the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at New America complained that T-Mobile wants to use network slicing as an excuse to exempt from net neutrality rules any specialized application or service that a mobile carrier delivers. The argument was made during a Jan. 26 meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. In a December filing, T-Mobile defined slicing as offering “customized, software-defined, virtual networks -- or ‘slices’ -- that are each logically separated and individually optimized to meet the specific needs of each application.” The problem is T-Mobile “leaps” from the fact that network slices can be customized to create non-broadband internet access services “for a purpose that cannot function on the regular internet (e.g., factory automation, auto safety, precision agriculture) to the general claim that anything a mobile carrier labels as a ‘slice’ of its network should by definition be treated as a non-BIAS data service and be exempt from the open internet rules,” OTI said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 23-320. T-Mobile said in December that “with the advent of network slicing that can offer applications tailor-made to particular use cases, the services broadband providers can support are richer and more diverse than ever.” OTI made similar arguments in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Anna Gomez, a second filing said.

PTC-220 sought special temporary authority for 180 days from the FCC to begin deploying recently acquired automated maritime telecommunications system spectrum licenses for positive train control in 53 East Coast counties. “PTC-220 has previously alerted the Commission that it would need additional spectrum in the future to deploy PTC and non-PTC rail safety applications,” said a filing posted Tuesday. “Originally, the freight railroads designed their PTC networks to operate on a single nationwide ‘Common Channel’ that controlled all locomotive radios,” PTC-220 said: “Real-world operation, however, revealed that the single Common Channel did not adequately handle congestion.”

Rural Wireless Association representatives spoke with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff on the group’s concerns about the commission’s proposal for a 5G Fund (see 2309110053). If carriers lose USF high-cost support for their service areas because of a 5G Fund reverse auction, “significant investments in their network and their communities will be forever stranded without support, which is a severe waste of taxpayer dollars that are being used to build out these 5G networks,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. “These are the same carriers that have been using their legacy high-cost support to upgrade and maintain their networks from analog to 2G to 3G to 4G and now 5G over many decades,” RWA said.

The FCC should address the remaining issues raised in a 2020 Further NPRM on the 6 GHz band, Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, urged during a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Anna Gomez. “In particular, I explained why the authorization of a somewhat higher maximum power level … for indoor-only use is particularly crucial for digital equity and inclusion, for continued U.S. leadership in next generation Wi-Fi, and for virtually all consumers, businesses and community anchor institutions,” he said, according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295.

CTIA sent a follow-up letter to NTIA Tuesday on implementing the national spectrum strategy, urging the agency to correct "mistakes made in earlier studies of the lower 3 GHz band and, consistent with Congressional intent, engage in a comprehensive review that includes licensed, full-power opportunities.” Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum, was among those raising questions about DOD’s study of the band at a recent American Enterprise Institute event (see 2401220066). “Licensed spectrum provides the only viable path for the wide-area coverage necessary to connect Americans with wireless service across the country,” the letter said: “The record supports evaluating all options for the lower 3 GHz band.” CTIA encouraged the administration to “restore NTIA leadership of spectrum studies and transparent, data-driven processes.” The administration should also take “a holistic look” at the entire 1,275 MHz of spectrum in the 7/8 GHz band “to identify the most promising opportunities, including making some or all of the band available,” CTIA said. That band, with the lower 3 GHz, has been a top wireless industry candidate for full-power licensed use. The 7/8 GHz band “is now a global ... target for expanding capacity for 5G and beyond” with the World Radiocommunication Conference deciding last year to include it in “a future agenda item for harmonization,” the letter said.

The Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division halted investigating a Verizon ad campaign that disparaged rivals' 5G Home Internet services after the company agreed it will stop it, NAD said Monday. The ads were part of a holiday promotion. Charter argued that in promoting fixed wireless service “Verizon made unsupported disparaging claims about the Wi-Fi service provided by competitors, such as Charter,” NAD said: “Verizon informed NAD that it had permanently discontinued the challenged claims. Therefore, NAD did not review the claims on their merits and will treat the claims, for compliance purposes, as though NAD recommended they be discontinued.”

Valued at $35.6 billion in 2022, the worldwide market for smart parking technologies is expected to reach $88.8 billion by the end of 2028, ResearchAndMarkets.com said Monday. This reflects a compound annual growth rate of 18.1% from 2023 to 2028. “Government initiatives such as smart cities are expected to result in better traffic and parking management solutions in regions such as Asia-Pacific and Oceana by the end of 2030,” the report said: “The desire for better technology to lessen the impact on the environment in the region is another factor fostering demand for smart parking technologies.”