N77 Holdings, which holds the N77 spectrum band license in the U.S., is asking the FCC to sign off on the company's indirect foreign ownership over 25%. In a petition Tuesday, N77 said the ownership changes are due to investment by Columbia Capital-managed investment vehicles. The new investors, including those investing in the Columbia vehicles, will exceed the 25% benchmark in the aggregate, N77 said. The additional capital will support its plans for deployment or potential sale of its licensed spectrum, the company added.
T-Mobile closed out a round of discussions with the FCC about the carrier’s support for infrastructure reform (see 2509230061), recapping its meeting with an aide to Commissioner Anna Gomez in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 25-276. Commissioners are scheduled to take up items on wireless and wireline rule changes at their meeting Tuesday (see 2509090060).
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and other groups urged FCC commissioners not to approve proposals circulated by Chairman Brendan Carr to zero out programs created under the Biden administration to fund Wi-Fi hot spots and Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2509030064). The filing, posted Wednesday in docket 21-31, was also signed by the American Library Association, Education and Libraries Networks Coalition and Homework Gap Coalition.
WISPA urged the FCC this week to release the data specifications that providers should follow when seeking to restore locations in the broadband data collection (BDC) and to post a public notice with detailed guidance. The FCC Office of Economics and Analytics was instructed to provide direction, in consultation with other bureaus and offices, in an order last year, WISPA noted.
T-Mobile and Grain submitted to the FCC various documents on their pending low-band spectrum transaction. Filed Monday in docket 25-178, the documents were fully redacted. Grain Management agreed to buy T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio (see 2503210033). Grain plans to work with utilities and others to deploy services using the 800 MHz spectrum.
New Jersey State Police supports a petition from the Safer Buildings Coalition urging the FCC to launch a rulemaking on guidelines for getting consent from licensees to install signal boosters (see 2507210025), said a filing Tuesday in RM-12009. Implementing the proposal “to involve proven frequency coordination precedents would help to standardize and streamline the approval process, leading to a single, known, published standard for all authorities having jurisdiction, licensees, signal booster system designers and installers,” it said. The police division was the first to weigh in on the petition.
The courts have spoken, upholding the FCC’s stance that cellphone location data is customer proprietary network information regulated by the agency, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Tuesday. “It feels like a rare treat these days to be able to share positive updates related to our privacy and cybersecurity work,” EPIC said. “The journey to get to this point has been quite a saga, spanning well over five years.”
Nationwide commercial mobile radio service providers must enable georouting of texts sent to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by April 16, 2027, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Tuesday (docket 18-336). The compliance deadline for non-nationwide providers is Oct. 16, 2028. FCC commissioners adopted a 988 text georouting requirement during the agency's July meeting (see 2507240055).
Amateur operator Yael Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, warned against NextNav’s proposal to offer a terrestrial complement to GPS using 900 MHz spectrum (see 2507280039). “A growing community of hobbyists and enthusiasts have benefited from an open band of spectrum … to communicate with each other, test various devices, and ensure a free and open ‘net’ for our own amateur radio communications,” said a filing Monday in docket 24-240.
Srini Gopalan, former CEO of Deutsche Telekom’s Germany business, will replace Mike Sievert as CEO of T-Mobile starting Nov. 1, the company announced Monday. Sievert will move to the new role of vice chairman. The move had been rumored for several months (see 2506100058), with Gopalan, who has served as COO since March 1, as the expected replacement.