Howard Buskirk

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.

While the wireless industry largely supported recommendations in an FCC NPRM on implementing a 100% hearing-aid compatibility (HAC) requirement for wireless handset models, groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing urged tweaks. Commissioners approved the NPRM in December (see 2312130019) and comments were posted this week in docket 23-388. The Hearing Loss Association of America led other groups in urging that the FCC adopt “a forward-looking, flexible definition of hearing aid compatibility that reflects changing technologies.” The FCC should adopt a definition of Bluetooth connectivity “that rests on a set of functional requirements” ensuring HAC compatibility “via Bluetooth … designed to achieve effective HAC use in the widest number of scenarios possible,” the groups said. They called for “an expanded definition of hearing aid compatibility to include Bluetooth connectivity along with telecoil connectivity,” which “does not rely solely on market conditions to ensure that telecoil coupling will continue to be included in handsets.” The FCC should take “a hybrid approach to grandfathering in handsets as outlined by the Commission, with the ultimate goal of 100% of handset models meeting the ANSI C63.19-2019 standard and newer ANSI standards as they are developed,” they said. Signing the filing were the National Association of the Deaf, TDIforAccess, Communication Service for the Deaf and the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing at Gallaudet University. The HAC Task Force urged the FCC to align rules with its December 2022 recommendations (see 2212160063). The task force included both consumer and industry groups, and it adopted a unanimous report based on work that started in 2020. “The HAC Task Force recommendations embrace innovation and future trends while ensuring no consumer will be ‘left behind,’” the task force said: “All … participants support the goal of 100% HAC deployment, and they were proud to present the Commission with a concrete, achievable, consensus path to 100% HAC.” CTIA endorsed the 2022 report. “The recommendations are the fruits of a years-long, consensus-based process designed to answer the very question of whether and how 100% HAC can be achieved to benefit consumers with hearing loss,” CTIA said. Samsung Electronics America also endorsed the task force report. “Samsung’s own experience with Bluetooth demonstrates its importance as a hearing technology that is easily accessible to consumers throughout the United States,” the company said: “As a mainstream and growing technology, Bluetooth holds significant promise for consumers with hearing loss.” CTA said recent research supports the task force’s approach to HAC. “The interlocking recommendations in the Report encourage innovation by setting forth a flexible definition for HAC while ensuring testing to objective standards for compliance with deployment benchmarks,” CTA said. For the first time, the rules “incorporate Bluetooth into deployment benchmarks,” CTA said.

A top priority of GSMA this year is helping industry move to open networks and allowing application programmable interface (API) roaming, Mats Granryd, GSMA director general, said Monday at the start of the group’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. CEOs of major European providers, meanwhile, called for major changes in how they are regulated.

CTIA told the FCC “the record strongly supports” its request for a 12-month extension (see 2401090026) of the FCC's six-month deadline for carriers to implement rules protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud. “The record also makes clear that a workable compliance deadline serves the public interest,” CTIA said, in a filing posted Monday in docket 21-341: “CTIA shares the Commission’s goals of fraud prevention and security for consumers and business customers.” The FCC “significantly underestimated the time needed for industry compliance with the new SIM swap and port-out fraud rules,” the Competitive Carriers Association said. Meeting a six-month deadline “would be a significant challenge to even the largest nationwide carriers” and most CCA members are “smaller carriers with extremely limited resources and often over-extended staff multitasking on multiple projects,” CCA said. NCTA also supported CTIA’s petition, saying the new rules “will require the development of new authentication procedures, new customer notifications, and new recordkeeping, among other things.” Covered companies “will have to undertake significant employee training efforts,” NCTA said. Replies to oppositions were due Friday at the FCC.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Friday approved the applications of seven 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) providers to launch operations by standard-powered unlicensed devices, closing out a multi-year process. The development is one of the most significant for 6 GHz since the 2020 FCC order opening the spectrum for unlicensed use, industry officials said.

AT&T acknowledged Thursday it suffered extensive outages on its wireless network, including the ability of customers to call 911. The FCC is investigating.

Fixed wireless customers are the happiest broadband customers in the U.S., according to a recent survey, Recon Analytics' Roger Entner said Wednesday during a Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy webcast. Entner said U.S. carriers probably have the spectrum holdings they need to keep up with demand for fixed offerings. Entner’s comments were based on a recent proprietary Recon Analytics survey of more than 250,000 consumers in the U.S.

The use of quantum computing is emerging as a threat to public key infrastructure technology and other methods of encryption used to protect data on the internet, speakers said Tuesday during a Mobile World Live webinar. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a long-standing project, launched in 2016, to develop post-quantum encryption standards.

An FCC order and Further NPRM on robocalls and robotexts and an order allowing use of wireless multichannel audio systems (WMAS) included a number of changes over the draft versions, based on side-by-side comparisons. Commissioners approved them 5-0 Thursday (see 2402150053 and 2402150037). In an apparent win for carriers, the FCC changed parts of the robocall/robotext FNPRM, opening the door to a pivot away from a mandate.

Delegates to the World Radiocommunication Conference last year dealt with a slew of proposed future agenda items for WRC 2027, Michael Mullinix, CTIA vice president-regulatory affairs, said during a panel discussion at an FCBA webinar Wednesday (see 2402140051). Similarly, an unusually large number of items on the 2023 agenda remained from 2019, Mullinix said. The U.S. delegation offered a “whopping” 18 proposals for the 2027 agenda; more than 40 proposals came from other regions, he said. “That’s a lot of proposals, and more importantly, a lot of priorities for each country that submitted them,” he said. The goal is narrowing the focus to a “manageable” 15 to 18 topics during the four-year study period, Mullinix said. “The work is already underway toward WRC-27 decisions today,” he said. It’s already clear that the biggest focus of the U.S. in 2027 will be making more mid-band spectrum available for full-power licensed use, he said. Recent studies suggest U.S. wireless networks will “fall short” of meeting expected demand “absent new spectrum access,” he said. Mullinix said 7/8 GHz, which will get further study under the administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2402090059), is “now the global harmonization target for expanding capacity for 5G and beyond.” Spectrum policy is critical to ensuring that trusted equipment suppliers have “the global economies of scale needed to compete, and don’t have to develop unique equipment just for the U.S. market,” he said. HWG’s Tricia Paoletta said it’s also clear the U.S. will continue pressure at the next WRC to protect the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi and unlicensed use. “The U.S. is also the global leader in the Wi-Fi ecosystem,” which next year is expected to be worth $5 trillion, she said. U.S. companies “hold the vast majority of intellectual property rights … so it’s a very critical area for the United States’ economy too,” she said. Chinese operators, led by Huawei, will continue pressuring other countries to allocate the 6 GHz band for international mobile telecommunications, Paoletta said. Hogan Lovells’ George John noted that 7/8 GHz is already used for unlicensed operations, earth exploration and space research. It's important because the amount of space research services spectrum available is limited, he said. All the bands to be studied for licensed use will present complications for policymakers, John predicted. U.S. leadership in 5G and 6G is “super important,” but “we also need to love the incumbents,” he said.