The Wireless Infrastructure Association announced Thursday that Youngstown State University in Ohio is launching a pre-apprenticeship program for broadband industry careers. The program is part of WIA’s Telecommunications Industry Registered Apprenticeship Program. “Pre-apprenticeship programs are a proven way to create accessible career paths within high-demand fields such as the broadband industry,” said Lindsey Ekstrand, the school's director-workforce education.
The Ecommerce Innovation Alliance told the FCC that the issues its members face have gotten worse since it filed a petition in March asking for a declaratory ruling finding that people who provide prior express written consent to receive text messages can't claim damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for messages received outside the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (see 2503030036). Comments were due on the petition Thursday, replies April 25.
The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector notified the FCC on Thursday that T-Mobile and UScellular “provided complete responses” to the committee’s initial questions on T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of wireless assets from the smaller carrier (see 2405280047). The committee, which is informally known as Team Telecom, “shall complete its initial review of the Applications before the end of the 120-day initial review period, which begins on the date of this letter,” said a filing in docket 24-286. “The Commission will be notified promptly in the event of an extension of the 120-day initial review period or the need arises to conduct a 90-day secondary assessment.”
The Z-Wave Alliance slammed a recent NextNav engineering study that found no interference concerns with the company’s proposal for the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band “to enable a high-quality, terrestrial complement” to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing services (see 2503030023). The NextNav proposal is one part of a GPS notice of inquiry approved last month by the FCC (see 2503270042).
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned the FCC that changing wireless emergency alert (WEA) rules to reduce alert fatigue and opt-outs won’t be easy given the nature of WEAs. “The problem is that there is no way to suppress WEA attention getting signals (audible or vibration cadence) when the WEA recipient was already presented with attention getting signals in the original alert or a previous alert update,” the NWA said this week in docket 15-91. “This is a problem for the NWS and will be exacerbated as alert originator capabilities advance.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau said Wednesday that going forward it won’t announce additional licenses in the 900 MHz broadband segment when they're approved. Instead, the grants will be announced in the bureau’s weekly status public notice. The FCC approved an order five years ago reallocating a 6 MHz swath in the band for broadband while maintaining 4 MHz for narrowband operations (see 2005130057).
Aspects of the FCC's 2024 order reallocating the 2360-2395 MHz band on a secondary basis for space launch operations (see 2412310029) need clarification or reconsideration, the Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council said in a petition Tuesday (docket 13-115). AFTRCC applauded the decision to make spectrum available for space launch and reentry activities but said that shouldn't "cause undue constraints on the continued primary use of the shared allocation in the band by Federal and non-Federal flight test operators." It said the agency should make clear that coordination of space launch activity with flight test operations in the upper S band will be collaborative exercises. It should also make clear that per-launch coordination is required for nonfederal flight test operations in 2360-2395 MHz in the same way it's required for primarily federal flight test operations in the band, AFTRCC said. Lastly, the FCC should clarify language in the order suggesting that the availability of the 2360-2395 MHz band for commercial space launch and reentry activity was a minimum required by Congress when the law limits permissible operations to such activity and going beyond those uses would expressly conflict with the language of the statute.
Karrier One signed an agreement with AT&T Mobility to work with the provider on enhanced domestic and international Wi-Fi offload capabilities and to accelerate the adoption of decentralized physical infrastructure networks, the company said Tuesday. “Under the agreement, Karrier One will provide AT&T Mobility and its subscribers access to an expanded network of Wi-Fi offload locations powered by Hotspot 2.0/Passpoint technology,” Karrier One said.
Seventy-one percent of consumers with home internet get their router/gateway from their ISP, Parks Associates said Tuesday. It said that, historically, more consumers reported owning their own router than renting or leasing one, but that trend reversed in the 2022-23 time frame. That coincided with the launch of Wi-Fi 6E and 7 routers, which tend to be more expensive, it said.
Anuvu is seeking a de novo review before the FCC's administrative law judge of a Wireless Bureau decision upholding a rejection of Anuvu's C-band relocation claims for reimbursement. In a docket 21-333 petition posted Monday, Anuvu said last month's bureau order upholding a C-band relocation payment clearinghouse decision that denied part of Anuvu's reimbursement claims doesn't acknowledge or address the substantive legal argument Anuvu raised.