GE, GeoLinks Discuss 3.5 GHz Licenses With Pai

General Electric, active in the past on the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio services band, met FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to urge the agency to stick with a plan to license priority access licenses on a census-tract basis. The FCC is examining whether it should instead license the PALs in larger sizes, as proposed by wireless carriers (see 1710240050). “Census-tract licensing is critically important to GE and its industrial and critical-infrastructure customers, since the CBRS band is an ideal spectrum platform for the ‘Industrial Internet of Things’ (IIoT) and can serve as a unique catalyst for accelerated growth throughout the U.S. industrial and manufacturing sector,” GE filed Wednesday in docket 17-258. “Robust IIoT applications require significant spectrum, secure localized networks, and specialized technology, and today industrial and critical-infrastructure entities are typically unable to obtain the necessary wireless functionality from commercial mobile operators on a cost-effective basis.” Also on 3.5 GHz, GeoLinks CEO Skyler Ditchfield and others from the wireless ISP explained the importance of the band to his company. Ditchfield met over two days with officials, including all FCC members other than Jessica Rosenworcel. “The Company explained the challenge of operating on unlicensed bands such as 5 GHz in urban environments, where overcrowding can slow and disrupt service,” said a Wednesday filing. “It could provide better and more reliable service, including Gigabit service to the home, if the Company had access to sufficient licensed or lightly licensed spectrum.”