T-Mobile is launching retail offerings in most Sam’s Clubs across the U.S., as the chain’s “exclusive in-club wireless provider,” the carrier said Wednesday. Sam’s Club members “can shop the latest T-Mobile devices and plans, as well as T-Mobile 5G Home and Business Internet,” T-Mobile said.

The FCC should make inventory spectrum available for free to “non-dominant” carriers to promote competition, EchoStar, the parent of Dish Wireless, told the FCC (see 2404090045). “Non-incumbent carriers (more specifically, every carrier other than AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon) should have a ‘right of first refusal’ to all Inventory Spectrum,” EchoStar said. The company also urged the FCC to address the lower 12 GHz band, as advocated by the 12 GHz for 5G Coalition (see 2312270045): “Substantial evidence in the record shows that fixed 5G services can provide broadband to tens of millions of Americans, while fully protecting existing non-geostationary orbit Fixed-Satellite Service and Direct Broadcast Satellite customers.” In another filing this week in docket 24-72, electric utilities said the approaches the FCC is examining don’t provide the certainty they need. “Currently, utilities have very few options for accessing spectrum -- particularly spectrum with the certainty provided by licensed exclusive-use -- and those limited options are increasingly insufficient in bandwidth,” they said. “The ability to access Inventory Spectrum presents one potential solution to the problem of spectrum availability.” The filing was signed by the Edison Electric Institute, the Utilities Technology Council, the Utility Broadband Alliance, FirstEnergy, Southern California Edison and the Southern Co. The Blooston Group of small and rural carriers said the best approach would be site-based licensing, which “would provide a simpler and lower cost way to promote access to spectrum in rural areas, and by entrepreneurs and smaller operators.” Third-party coordinators and licensee-to-licensee coordination “could be relied upon to minimize harmful interference between operators,” Blooston said. NCTA said the Lower 3, 7, Lower 37 and 12.7 GHz bands would be “perfectly situated -- both spectrally and technologically” for licensed-shared and unlicensed spectrum access frameworks. “A coexistence-based approach in each band would allow for efficient and cost-effective spectrum use by a diverse set of users, offer the fastest method of putting this spectrum in the hands of businesses and consumers, and enable federal and non-federal incumbents to continue providing critical services without disruption,” NCTA said.

The lower 3 GHz band's future is unsettled following DOD's public release last week of a redacted version of its Emerging Mid-Band Radar Spectrum Sharing Feasibility Assessment (see 2404030052), New Street’s Blair Levin said Wednesday in a note to investors. “The report's most significant implications for investors involve what the DOD report did not do,” he said: “It did not resolve any issues or provide a timetable for doing so. Thus, we remain far from resolving the question of where the spectrum that the wireless carriers argue they will need by 2027 will come from.” While some advocate exclusive licensing of the band, and others sharing, DOD “almost certainly retains a veto power over any potential outcome,” he said.

AT&T saw more than 1.1 billion MMS messages on its network Monday tied to the eclipse. That is 273 million more messages than are sent on a typical day, Chris Sambar, AT&T head-network, blogged Wednesday. Sambar noted the network has changed since the last total eclipse in the U.S., in 2017. “Our network is virtualized and can now handle much more capacity at much higher speeds,” he said. AT&T saw 168 petabytes of data on an average business day in 2017, compared with 680 petabytes today, Sambar said.

Nex-Tech Wireless representatives complained to the FCC about the company’s failed attempts to submit data to the FCC through the broadband data collection portal. Nex-Tech said it conducted drive tests on more than 11,000 road miles throughout its service area in western Kansas. “Despite multiple attempts and a great deal of work from the BDC staff, the data submitted … could not be successfully formatted to be accepted into the BDC portal,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. “Certain data fields not germane to the data collection were not collected and made available to the portal and as a result the submission failed, despite the fact that key parameters, such as location, speed, and latency, were available.” The data is no longer valid and the test process was “wasted,” the company said. Nex-Tech met with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr, Anna Gomez and Nathan Simington.

GCI updated the FCC on problems it has faced replacing text telephone (TTY) with real-time text (RTT). TTY is considered an outdated technology for deaf and hearing impaired communication. GCI’s first attempt “resulted in garbled, difficult-to-understand text for calls converted from RTT to TTY, and vice-versa,” said a filing Monday in docket 15-178. The Alaska provider and its vendors “worked diligently and expended significant resources to identify the cause of this translation problem and developed a unique solution to resolve it,” the filing said: “Due to the detailed nature of this process, the extensive back-and-forth between GCI and its vendors, and the need to ensure that this solution did not cause other unintended consequences on GCI’s network, this process took approximately eighteen months to complete.”

NCTA officials and members spoke with aides to all five FCC commissioners about Samsung Electronics America’s request for a waiver for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see 2309130041). Cable companies objected earlier (see [Ref:2401050052). Technical analysis demonstrates that Samsung’s multiband radio “and others sure to follow based on its theory would increase the median noise in the CBRS band by roughly 11 dB, harming the services existing CBRS users are providing to consumers,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-98. Approval of the waiver “would set a troubling precedent by allowing future parties to disregard emissions limits and other protections, undermining the Commission’s ability to manage interference.” Among those represented on the calls were Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises.

The FCC should delay a 5G Fund auction until broadband equity, access, and deployment program funds ae awarded, ACA Connects said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-32. “Though the Commission’s high-cost programs distinguish fixed service from mobile service, 5G networks are capable of, and already provide, both,” ACA said: “5G fixed service providers have signed up millions of customers annually in the past few years, capturing the lion’s share of recent fixed broadband growth and providing intense competition to wireline providers.” The association said “where fixed and mobile broadband services were once distinct segments of the marketplace, 5G blurs the line between the two.” The Competitive Carriers Association raised similar timing concerns in a meeting with aides to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “It is critical that a 5G Fund auction does not occur prematurely to ensure funds are used most efficiently and are targeted to those areas that need it most,” CCA said: “Fiber deployed through the BEAD program will provide a tremendous resource for future 5G mobile deployments as fiber is needed to connect towers across rural America.” CCA said fiber backhaul can comprise up to 20% of the cost of deploying a tower.

FirstNet Authority officials urged that the FCC make the 4.9 GHz band available as part of FirstNet during a meeting with aides to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. NTIA made an ex parte filing on the meeting, on behalf of the authority, posted on Tuesday in docket 07-100. The band's future has been hotly contested (see 2403150054). “The FirstNet Authority is in a position to leverage the 4.9 GHz band for the benefit of public safety by using it to provide enhanced and innovative broadband communications services and capabilities to first responders on a nationwide basis,” the authority said: Use of the spectrum as part of the FirstNet network “would be for public safety on a primary basis and should be governed under the FirstNet program’s statutory framework.” The authority said it would protect existing incumbent operations in the band.

Tribal-area wireless provider Smith Bagley asked the FCC to temporarily provide expanded monthly tribal Lifeline benefits of $25 to $65.75 to make up for the loss of funding as the affordable connectivity program expires. “Over 329,000 Tribal households currently receive ACP discounts, including residents living in remote rural areas that have poverty rates many times the national average,” said a petition posted Monday in docket 11-42: The loss of tribal ACP funding "will have devastating impacts as many residents will find high-quality broadband connections to be priced out of their reach, with few or no options to connect.” Smith Bagley also reported on a call with an aide to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on the proposed 5G Fund. It emphasized that the upcoming Tribal 5G Fund auction mechanism “must treat remote Tribal lands as a special case to ensure that these highest-cost areas are not excluded from receiving support as a result of an auction process,” said a filing in docket 20-32. The firm “discussed the extraordinary costs that the company faces in accessing fiber backhaul to its towers, 90% of which are today served by microwave. Without fiber, it will be difficult to meet the Commission’s 5G Fund auction performance requirements.”