Pai Seeks April 23 Vote on Wi-Fi in 6 GHz, 5G Fund

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai seeks a vote at the April 23 commissioners' meeting on opening 6 GHz to Wi-Fi. Also as expected, Pai confirmed Wednesday he seeks a vote at the meeting on a 5G fund. In a departure from the NPRM, Pai proposes making all 1,200 megahertz available for low-power indoor use, without automated frequency control. The order suggests wide channels, since power levels will be much lower than is allowed in other Wi-Fi spectrum, officials said. The draft allows gigabyte access anywhere on a single floor, officials said in interviews. The draft authorizes “standard-power in 850-megahertz of the band and indoor low-power operations over the full 1,200-megahertz,” said a release. The Further NPRM “proposes to permit very low-power devices to operate across the 6 GHz band, to support high data rate applications including high-performance, wearable, augmented-reality and virtual-reality devices.” The FCC didn’t previously ask about that class of devices. “I can’t wait to see, and use, the new services and ideas brought forward because of our work here,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly: “Conclusion of the further notice, which must be done this year, should provide further improvements and functionality.” It's "an elegant way to enable the next generation of broadband and close the digital divide," while "protecting incumbent operations," Chris Szymanski, Broadcom director-government affairs, told us. This will “supercharge” unlicensed, he said. “We see the U.S. leading on Wi-Fi, on unlicensed issues, that are going to be critical for enabling 5G.” It creates "incentives for Wi-Fi users to spread their energy over extremely wide channels," which "greatly increases the capacity of Wi-Fi indoors" and better protects incumbent users, emailed Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. The Utilities Technology Council will “continue to provide the FCC with technical detail demonstrating the very real interference potential from unlicensed use across all parts of the band and the need for thoroughly tested automated frequency coordination,” emailed Senior Vice President-Government and External Affairs Sharla Artz. The 5G fund meanwhile will target areas unlikely to be covered by the T-Mobile transaction commitments, Pai wrote. That takeover of Sprint was completed Wednesday, with the companies citing COVID-19. See our earlier bulletin about the completion: here. An article about the companies' plans is here. (We are putting coronavirus-related news in front of our pay wall.)