Topography Biggest Deployment Hurdle for Wireless, T-Mobile Says

As T-Mobile follows through on regulatory commitments to build out 5G to cover most of the U.S., population density often isn’t as big a challenge as topography, said Chris Wieczorek, senior director-spectrum policy, at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference. In mountainous areas, “you get a lot more coverage holes,” he said. Wednesday's conference focus was on rural and hard-to-serve areas.

Wieczorek cited the region around Asheville, North Carolina. “You’ll see lots of areas in that particular part of the country where you’ll have a great signal on one side of the mountain, but if you go over a hill, you have no signal,” even though a cellsite is relatively close, he said: “Once you get behind a hunk of mountain, you’re just not going to have any kind of service.” Wireless carriers often can’t provide adequate coverage in those markets, which are frequently better served by wireline or electric utility broadband, he said. “Everybody wants high-speed broadband, but nobody wants to have a giant tower on top of their majestic mountain,” he said.

It will be “awhile” before 5G is widely available in rural areas, said Clyde Aiken, president of the Wireless ISP Association. A lot of the 5G gear is new and expensive, and prices haven't started coming down, he said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because 4G/LTE is still fantastic,” he said.

Shreyas Ravi of Economists Inc. said USF auctions are the FCC’s only path to expand broadband to everyone. The costs are too high without funding, he said: “If we don’t do anything, it’s not that we’re eventually going to see all of the rural areas covered with the speeds they need.” Procurement auctions aren’t new, he noted: Any request for proposal is, in effect, a procurement auction: “These auctions are not so different.”

In an age of COVID-19, “low speeds don’t cut it,” Ravi said: “People are relying on their broadband to do their jobs and to go to school, and they can’t be on a Zoom call with 20 other kids unless they have adequate coverage, adequate speeds.” Mobile broadband still isn’t a “complete solution,” he said. Deciding to spend billions of dollars on subsidies is “scary,” he said: “With an auction, you have the advantage that it’s a competitive process and that competitive process hopefully will mitigate some of the risks.” The risk of not providing service is bigger than the risk of oversubsidization, he said.

Collecting broadband through Form 477 “was a big step forward,” said Kirk Burgee, FCC Wireline Bureau chief of staff. “There was nothing quite like it,” but it has limitations and isn’t granular enough, he said. The broadband data law approved by Congress in March (see 2003240049) largely affirmed the new data collection the FCC approved in 2019, Burgee said, but it took the Universal Service Administrative Co. out of the equation and requires mobile and fixed-wireless data, he said. The FCC approved broadband mapping rules in July (see 2007160062).

The problem remains money, Burgee said. “We do not have funding to implement a number of the requirements, particularly the fabric platform and collection platform and the challenge-process platform,” he said: “We’re seeking to get funding for those, but until we do, we’re not able to move forward significantly with the IT side and the platforms.”

Satellite has been well suited to provide service during the pandemic, said Jennifer Manner, EchoStar senior vice president-regulatory affairs. Satellite operators don’t have to build towers to serve new customers, she said. “We’re up and we’re able to take on customers, so that’s where … satellite is particularly attractive for rural areas,” she said: “We don’t have the time lag that you see with other services.”

Satellite and high-altitude platforms “are playing and will continue to play a critical role in providing next-generation services and helping bridge the digital divide,” said Thomas Sullivan, FCC International Bureau chief. Sullivan noted the FCC “provided certainty” for satellites in the 40-42 and 48.2-50.2 GHz bands in the spectrum frontiers proceeding. The FCC approved an earth stations in motion order (see 2005130057) in May addressing “one of the fastest-growing segments,” he noted. Just last week, the bureau approved satellite application by Loft Orbital in the first use of a new streamlined process approved last year (see 2010090005), he said.