Howard Buskirk

Verizon remains enthusiastic about its choice to invest heavily in C-band spectrum during the 2021 auction, Joe Russo, president-global networks and technology, said at the Scotiabank financial conference Tuesday. Verizon went big in the C-band auction, bidding $45.4 billion, plus $8 billion in incentive costs to satellite operators (see 2102250046). C-band has “great propagation characteristics,” Russo said. “And the usage of that C-band spectrum has just been exploding as more and more customers get access to it and more and more customers buy our premium plans with premium devices.” C-band also gives Verizon the capacity to offer fixed wireless access, he said. Russo said FWA requires “really good modeling around RF propagation” and “really great capacity management capabilities.” Verizon has focused on both. Moreover, its mobile network remains Verizon's top priority, with FWA possible where it has excess capacity, he said. The average 160 MHz of C-band Verizon has in each market gives the carrier lots of capacity, he said. Russo noted its FWA product offers 300 Mbps service. “When we look at even peak volumes that come out of a consumer's home, even the biggest homes with streaming and gaming and all these kinds of things, customers are using far less than that,” he said. Peak demands for top tier fiber and FWA customers average 100 Mbps or less, he said. Verizon now has more than 3 million FWA customers, with a goal of 5 million-6 million by the end of next year, which means about 350,000 adds per quarter, Russo said. “We're well ahead of that pace.”

NTIA is facing increasing pressure from carriers for additional spectrum for full-power licensed use, and from interests favoring a more open-ended approach, especially in the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, as the agency finalizes an implementation plan for the national spectrum strategy, due for release March 14. DOD is defending its systems in the bands targeted by carriers. Meanwhile, there are questions about how much longer Scott Harris, NTIA senior spectrum adviser, will remain at the agency after the implementation plan is released, industry officials told us.

AT&T is collaborating with the FCC and other regulators in the wake of the recent widespread wireless network outage (see 2402220058), AT&T Chief Operating Officer Jeff McElfresh said during a Morgan Stanley financial conference Monday. McElfresh also confirmed that the loss of affordable connectivity program (ACP) funding won’t be a major financial hit for the carrier, while AT&T is poised to gain connections through the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.

It's unclear how much the FCC’s enhanced competition incentive program (ECIP) will influence the way industry does business, experts said. Commissioners approved ECIP in the summer of 2022. It's officially live as of last month (see 2402150043).

During recent calls with financial analysts, executives at major tower companies acknowledged some slowness in the push to build 5G across the U.S. That’s in keeping with a trend seen last year (see 2308010069). The calls included those from SBA Communications and American Tower this week.

NTIA asked the FCC to harmonize rules for the 24 GHz band with decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019. The FCC approved an NPRM 3-2 in December examining changes to the rules, over dissents by Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington (see 2312260043). Reactions have been mixed (see 2402280037). NTIA filed joint comments, posted Thursday in docket 21-186, with NOAA and NASA. The NPRM proposes “an important step to honor our country’s international commitments,” they said. The NPRM “astutely explains” that passive satellite sensors operated by the federal government on frequencies allocated to the earth exploration satellite service “are particularly vulnerable to harmful interference,” the filing said. These passive sensors “are designed to look downward toward Earth and measure the power level of naturally occurring radio emissions from molecules in the atmosphere that occur at specific frequencies. Very sensitive instrumentation is necessary to measure such weak, natural signals.” NTIA said NOAA wants the FCC to apply the Resolution 750 limits to fixed services in the band and not just to international mobile telecommunications, “noting it is unaware of any technical justification for applying different emission limits to fixed systems.” That latter point was opposed by industry. The limits should apply to only mobile base stations and handsets and not other operations the rules allow, including point-to-point operations, point-to-multipoint operations and transportable devices like fixed wireless access customer premises equipment, Qualcomm said. “The Commission distinguishes these types of operations in its Part 30 rules, particularly when it comes to emissions limits,” Qualcomm said: “NTIA’s request to apply Resolution 750 to fixed operations is outside the scope of and inconsistent with the FCC’s longstanding regulatory framework.” Ericsson supported the WRC-19 limits but urged an exemption for indoor small cells “given the interference protection factors inherent in indoor operations and the unnecessary costs the limits would impose on the development and deployment of those systems.” CTIA said the FCC should adopt the WRC-19 recommendations but go no further. The group noted that companies invested $2 billion to buy licenses in the 24 GHz auction. “Beyond the FCC’s already balanced approach, the emission limits adopted by WRC-19 go above and beyond what is necessary to protect passive satellite operations,” CTIA said. “Any suggestions to expand emission limits beyond the WRC-19 agreement would be unnecessary and cause substantial harm to 24 GHz licensees,” the group said. “To avoid undermining licensees’ investment-backed expectations in acquiring 24 GHz band licenses, the Commission should reject proposals that would go beyond implementing the consensus-based decisions made at WRC-19,” T-Mobile agreed.

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance, Anterix and electric utilities are urging the FCC to take the next step in the 900 MHz band and launch a rulemaking on authorizing 5/5 MHz broadband deployments in the band. Utilities are the primary users of the spectrum.

The National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) stressed the importance of protection for passive scientific use of the 24 GHz band, in comments responding to an NPRM commissioners approved 3-2 in December, over dissents by Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington (see 2312260043). The NPRM seeks to align rules for the band with decisions made at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019. Comments were filed this week in docket 21-186. “Observations made by Earth Exploration Satellite Service sensors provide unique data regarding the state of the Earth System, and especially its atmosphere at a given moment in time, which, by their very nature, cannot be reproduced or replicated,” CORF said: “The observation frequencies cannot be modified, because they are largely determined by the physical characteristics of what needs to be observed, for example, specific water vapor lines are the result of the molecular properties of water.” The IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society also stressed the importance of controlling potential levels of contamination from out-of-band-emissions to passive operations in the band. AT&T said the FCC should implement Resolution 750, which the WRC adopted. “The leadership of the United States at WRC-19 resulted in limits that will fully protect passive operations in the 23.6-24.0 GHz band from unwanted emissions from [upper microwave flexible use service] networks in the 24.25-27.5 GHz bands, without unnecessary measures that would impact the roll-out of 5G mobile services,” AT&T said. GuRu Wireless, which is developing a system for wireless power transfer at a distance in the band, counseled caution. “While ostensibly limited in scope to the adoption of the WRC-19 decision, the NPRM here seeks comment on additional issues, such as the adoption of emission limits that are more stringent than the Resolution 750 limits,” GuRu said: “The Commission should avoid regulatory overreach and not expand its initial proposal by making any modifications to emission limits unrelated to UMFUS operations.”

AI could contribute more than $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to estimates, but that success depends on agreements that “harness” it, John Giusti, GSMA chief regulatory officer, said Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. AI is just one of several technologies that will transform telecom, other speakers said.

Driven by 5G, technology is changing how all industries conduct business and companies must adjust, speakers said during a keynote panel Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Technology is driving massive changes across multiple industries,” said Mohamed Kande, vice chair PwC US and the firm's global chairman-elect. How, when and where companies operate, what their biggest products are and how they serve customers are all changing, he said. “No one is spared,” he said. Kande noted that 65% of the companies on the Fortune Global 500 list in 1995 no longer exist -- they either got acquired or went bankrupt. PwC recently surveyed global CEOs, 45% of whom said their businesses won’t be viable in 10 years, Kande added. Companies have to “reinvent” their business models, he said. “It is not about doing the same thing” or “about becoming more efficient,” he said: Change is about “how companies make money differently, how they serve their customers in new ways, get into new products and services and even new industries.” A big force for change is 5G, which will make the IoT “a reality,” Kande said. “Think about all the data and insights that come out of 5G for companies to run their businesses better,” he said. We will see “an explosion of the cloud” because of how 5G is being deployed, and that will mean more reliance on AI, he predicted. Step one is being connected, said Antonio Neri, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Without connectivity, you can’t digitize, you can’t automate … and you can’t deliver these new experiences” for customers, he said. Neri said Hewlett Packard made a “big bet” on investing on the network edge. Companies can’t put all their data in the same location, whether on premises or in the cloud, he said. “We decided to build a hybrid cloud experience with the cloud principles in mind,” he said. For most companies, data is “the most valuable asset” they have, and at some point companies will have to report their owned data in financial balance sheets, he said. AI is “the next big inflection point” for the internet, predicted Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks. Companies need “bold thinking” to capture all the potential AI offers, he said.