T-Mobile added a company record 2 million postpaid subscribers in Q3 to bring its customer rolls to 100 million, the carrier said Thursday. That includes 689,000 postpaid phone net adds. The carrier reported $341 million in COVID-19-related expenses and $352 million in free cash flow, headed into upcoming FCC spectrum auctions. Free cash flow was $1.1 billion a year ago. The U.S. “has never seen anything like this network build,” CEO Mike Sievert said on a financial call, noting the company moved further ahead of AT&T on total customers. T-Mobile plans to offer 5G nationwide using its 2.5 GHz spectrum by the end of next year, he said. The band has both “massive capacity and … reach, measured in miles from our towers,” he said. T-Mobile’s low-band network already covers 270 million people, he said. “T-Mobile’s momentum has continued to accelerate quarter after quarter, as we profitably take share and outpace the competition,” he said: “We surprised the skeptics, and the optimists, yet again. … We’re working hard to go big and to go fast.” The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges “with a much slower switching environment than a year ago,” Sievert said. T-Mobile reported $1.2 billion in earnings on revenue of $19.3 billion. That compares with $870 million and $11 billion a year ago, before the Sprint buy closed. Some 79.7 million subscribers had post-paid and 20.6 million prepaid plans. Postpaid churn was 0.9%, a slight increase over the first two quarters of the year. T-Mobile “remains highly confident” it will deliver $43 billion of synergies from the Sprint deal, with $1.2 billion this year and more than twice that likely next year. Sievert credited avoided site builds and a streamlined marketing push. T-Mobile is also consolidating back office operations. It shut off the Sprint brand for new customer sales at the start of August.
House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Bob Latta, R-Ohio, touted the Rural Connectivity Advancement Program Act (HR-7972/S-4015), during a Thursday foreign policy event, as one of a “broad range” of GOP-led legislative proposals to improve broadband connectivity. HR-7972/S-4015 would set aside 10% of the net proceeds from FCC spectrum auctions through Sept. 30, 2022, for broadband buildout (see 2006180062). The measure would help ensure “we have those dollars available for that buildout,” Latta said. He noted that committee Republicans aimed to reduce regulatory barriers to broadband buildout (see 2006250068). The private sector said “’we're not against regulations, just give us regulations we can live with,’” Latta said. “They've invested about $1.7 trillion out there” in rural areas on broadband. Lawmakers need to ensure “we get it out to these rural areas,” especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The C-band auction and compensating satellite operators for leaving the spectrum are things the FCC could come to regret as a negative template for future spectrum auctions, said Philip Murphy, legislative director to House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa. The auction starts Dec. 8.
NTIA, working with DOD, is pushing ahead on a spectrum sharing system going beyond what's possible in the nascent citizens broadband radio service, said Charles Cooper, associate administrator of the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management, at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference Friday. NTIA is tentatively calling it “incumbent informing capability,” or ICC, and it’s being developed in coordination with the Defense Information Systems Agency, he said.
Auction economists Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. They “studied how auctions work” and “used their insights to design new auction formats for goods and services that are difficult to sell in a traditional way, such as radio frequencies,” the committee said Monday: “Their discoveries have benefited sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday “their work has made possible the extraordinary success of U.S. radiofrequency spectrum auctions.”
Silicon Flatirons dove into the importance of evidence-based spectrum policy during the start of a two-day conference Tuesday. Speakers said there are no easy answers, and it can be difficult to figure out where decisions are based on the evidence. The virtual conference continues Thursday.
The Enterprise Wireless Alliance said there's no evidence a successful T-band auction is possible, urging the FCC lift the T-band freeze, in replies in docket 13-42. “Bidding in spectrum auctions typically is driven by commercial wireless providers such as nationwide or regional carriers, by cable operators, and by” wireless ISPs, EWA said: “There is no indication that the latter two categories have any interest in this spectrum. Commercial carriers have described in detail why such an auction should not be expected to produce revenue anywhere near the amount needed to fund even [public safety] relocation costs.” Other replies, which were due Tuesday, agreed an auction won’t work, consistent with initial comments (see 2009010023). Los Angeles “continues to hope that Congress will enact legislation to repeal the T-Band Claw back” and would “welcome any relief that the Commission might offer to preserve the … ability to rely upon the T-Band for our public safety needs,” the city said. The band “supports emergency communications for frontline emergency responders in eleven major metropolitan areas,” said the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
The Senate Commerce Committee jettisoned the Rural Connectivity Advancement Program Act from its agenda for a Wednesday markup session (see 2009100031). NARUC leaders still warned committee leaders against what they called a “crucial omission." S-4015 would set aside 10% of net proceeds from FCC spectrum auctions through Sept. 30, 2022, for broadband buildout (see 2006180062). Senate Commerce didn’t comment on why the bill was pulled. S-4015 “laudably seeks to encourage programs to cover the gaps that remain in broadband internet access coverage in high-cost rural areas,” said NARUC President Brandon Presley and Telecom Committee Chair Karen Charles Peterson in a letter to Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “But unfortunately” the measure omits the eligible telecom carrier designation procedure, which provides “critical oversight of these subsidies which acts to block fraud and abuse.” That’s “a significant departure from the existing statutory scheme,” the NARUC leaders said. “There is no question that this inadvertent omission of” the ETC designation procedure “encourages abuse" of the Rural Connectivity Fund created by the legislation.
A Thursday Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on the FCC and NTIA roles in spectrum policymaking is likely to at least partially focus on the dispute between the two agencies over Ligado’s L-band plan, lawmakers and officials said in interviews. The hearing is also likely to be a venue for lawmakers to address other related policy matters, including FCC disputes with other federal agencies on the 24 GHz auction and other frequencies, and bids to allocate proceeds from the coming auction of spectrum on the 3.7-4.2 GHz C band, lobbyists said. The panel begins at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell (see 2007160054).
The FCC needs to work with NTIA and other stakeholders to develop “specific and measurable performance goals … to manage spectrum demands associated with 5G deployment,” the GAO said in a report released Monday. Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees and the House Science Committee were among those who requested the study. The report noted recent FCC actions to make more spectrum available for 5G services but said the commission “has not developed” “performance goals with related strategies and measures to assess how well its actions are mitigating the added effects 5G deployment will have on the digital divide.” The plan “notes that FCC’s actions on the 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 3.7-4.2 GHz bands could make up to 844 MHz available for 5G, but these strategies are not related to any identified performance goals or measures,” GAO said. The FCC “neither agreed nor disagreed with our recommendations,” GAO said. The regulator “described the challenges associated with developing performance goals for managing the spectrum demands associated with 5G deployment. Specifically, FCC stated that such goals could limit the options available to manage spectrum demands. Instead, FCC stated that it adopts specific and measurable performance goals -- with related strategies and measures -- during ongoing rulemakings, which allow FCC to establish engineering, economic, or other technical outcomes.” The FCC "has made substantial progress in expediting the deployment of 5G" in the U.S., a spokesperson emailed. "On the spectrum front, we've already held three auctions and will be holding two mid-band spectrum auctions later this year. On the wireless infrastructure front, we've adopted many orders to make it easier to deploy the physical building blocks of 5G networks, including this year's 5G Upgrade Order, and small cell deployments have skyrocketed. And on the fiber front, thanks to our reforms, the United States set records for fiber deployment in both 2018 and 2019."