Howard Buskirk

Amateur radio operators have filed hundreds of short comments urging the FCC to retain the 60-meter band for amateur use. The band was the focus of a question teed up in an April order and NPRM on implementing decisions by the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 and 2019. Replies are due Nov. 28 in docket 23-120. “We propose to allocate the 5351.5-5366.5 kHz band to the Amateur Radio Service on a secondary basis and seek comment on whether the amateur service should keep the existing channels they use in the 60-meter band,” the NPRM said. Federal agencies use the larger 5275-5450 kHz band “for services that include military, law enforcement, disaster relief, emergency, and contingency operations” and there are also non-federal operations, the FCC said at the time. The NPRM notes that amateurs often refer to frequency bands by the wavelength of the signal rather than by the spectrum range. “Commenters that support expanded access to the 60 meter band should provide information regarding how heavily the five amateur frequencies in the 5275-5450 kHz band are used and why additional amateur spectrum in this frequency range is needed if we adopt the proposed allocation,” the notice said. The FCC also asked about the power levels that should be allowed. Most comments run only a sentence or two. “The 60 meter band is ideally located between the amateur 80- and 40-meter bands, which is critical to ensuring signal propagation to certain geographic areas during variations in time and the solar cycle while providing communications for disaster relief,” said a filing by amateur operator Douglas Wilkerson, posted Monday. “I have used the 60 meter band to establish communications when propagation on other amateur bands was not optimal,” said operator Deane Charlson: “The 60 meter band is a nice option to have during emergency communications.”

With the World Radiocommunication Conference starting Monday in Dubai, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and former Chairman Ajit Pai questioned how well the U.S. is positioned to score wins. They spoke during an American Enterprise Institute webinar Friday. Pai was chairman during the previous WRC four years ago.

The FCC’s draft order and Further NPRM protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud saw several changes on its way to approval by commissioners last week (see 2311150042), according to our side-by-side analysis. The item was posted in Friday’s Daily Digest. Changes mostly rejected wireless groups' requests for adjustments. FCC officials clarified after the meeting the adopted item had the same implementation dates as proposed in the draft, despite concerns raised by the Competitive Carriers Association and those of CTIA that it will be difficult to meet a six-month implementation time frame (see 2311130040). “We conclude that providing six months after the effective date of the Report and Order to implement these revisions to our [customer proprietary network information] and number porting rules strikes the right balance between time for wireless providers to implement these changes and accounting for the urgency of safeguarding customers from these fraudulent schemes” and that the time frame is “consistent with other proceedings and regulatory frameworks adopted by the Commission where consumer protection and numbering requirements were at issue,” the order said. “We decline, at this time, to adopt a requirement that wireless providers immediately notify customers in the event of multiple failed authentication attempts in connection with SIM change requests,” the final item said, in added language: The final order also rejects a CTIA request that providers can use other data for verification “when customers are traveling and may not have access to or remember a PIN.” Commissioners found “such an exception would establish a significant loophole for fraudulent activity and note that in these circumstances, customers can use alternative methods of authentication, such as email.” Comment deadlines on the FNPRM will come in a Federal Register notice.

Carriers are upgrading networks to virtual and open radio access networks, reflecting a gradual evolution, speakers said Thursday during an Informa Tech webinar. But Dell’Oro Group warned that North American investments in the RAN remain on a downward trend, with no uptick in sight.

The FCC’s August public notice on spectrum access in tribal and native Hawaiian areas is part of the agency’s broader focus on closing the digital divide, Wireless Bureau Deputy Chief Susan Mort said during an FCC webinar Thursday. Mort said she realized timing was tight on responding to the notice, with comments due Nov. 30 (see 2308040039). “To assess current and future policy efforts in furtherance of this goal, we kind of need to know what the current lay of the land is,” she said. The FCC collects some information through its licensing forms but wants to improve its understanding of how tribes may be accessing spectrum, including through leasing or by using unlicensed or lightly licensed bands, she said. “We do not currently have specific, granular answers that help us … to better identify and/or track tribal or native applications,” she said. Once the FCC decides what categories it might be able to add to licensing forms, “then there are both legal and technical steps that we must undertake,” Mort said. Clearance is faster if the FCC adds to existing questions rather than posing completely new questions, she said. “We do have to run those traps,” she said: “We’d like to move … forward as quickly as we can." No comments were filed so far in the docket on the inquiry, 23-265. “We want to be as comprehensive as we can be without being confusing,” Mort said.

The FCC’s notice of inquiry asking how AI can fight robocalls, as well as potential risks from the technology, saw a few changes over the draft (see 2311150042). The FCC approved the NOI 5-0 Wednesday and released the final version Thursday. Comments are due Dec. 18, replies Jan. 16. Among the changes, the NOI now mentions the administration’s AI executive order (see 2310300056), released after the draft circulated. The FCC added a series of questions in a new paragraph. “What other steps can we take to identify the root causes of AI-driven robocall or robotext scams?” the NOI now asks: “Should we solicit information from industry regarding the type of AI technologies used in particular scams, either on a regular basis or in connection with investigations? Should we inquire as to whether the AI technology used was developed for general legal uses, and misused, or whether it was purpose-built for unlawful applications? If the AI technology was developed for general use, were there safeguards in place to ensure it was not misused? If so, how were they disabled?” The NOI also now asks, “How best can we share the information that we gather about fraudulent uses of AI within our purview with our sister agencies, who are charged with addressing malicious uses of AI in other contexts?” Commissioner Geoffrey Starks indicated Wednesday he asked for those changes. The NOI includes statements from Starks and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The U.S. is handicapped headed into the World Radiocommunication Conference next week since it proposes only two bands for future studies, 3.1-3.3 and 13 GHz, while China has positions on all five bands proposed for study for international mobile telecommunications, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and other speakers said during an Atlantic Council webinar Wednesday. The WRC starts Monday in Dubai. Among the bands targeted by China for IMT is 6 GHz, where the U.S. is promoting an agreement supporting unlicensed use of the band (see 2310270047).

FCC commissioners approved an open-ended notice of inquiry Wednesday that asked how AI can fight robocalls, as well as potential risks from the technology. Commissioners also approved an order providing survivors of domestic violence with safe and affordable access to communications and an order and Further NPRM protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud. None of the items was controversial and all were approved 5-0.

Verizon is satisfied with its progress on fixed wireless access after adding 384,000 FWA customers in Q3, Chief Financial Officer Tony Skiadas said at a Morgan Stanley financial conference Wednesday. “It's very simple -- you plug it in and go,” he said: “There's no install. … It resonates with customers and it's very simple to use, and that's been the goal with this.” Skiadas said Verizon is now able to deploy all the licenses it purchased in the C-band auction, providing some 160 MHz of spectrum across the U.S. “Our C-band is rolled out to ... a little more than half of our cellsites,” he said. “We're very pleased with the progress thus far of the build, but we still have more to do.”

Despite a slow start, open radio access networks are starting to build momentum, including in the U.S., speakers said Tuesday during an Informa Tech webinar. Getting the timing right will be difficult but “the commitment is there from large operators” to move to open networks, said Gabriel Brown, senior principal analyst-mobile networks & 5G at Heavy Reading. Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and other big European operators are committed to ORAN, he said. In the U.S., ORAN has gone “a little slower than some anticipated” but U.S. carriers are “pioneering” virtual RAN and cloud RAN, he said. Brown also noted Dish Network’s deployment of ORAN technology in its network build. “We’re starting to see it pick up in other regions,” he said. Japan’s Docomo is probably the biggest incumbent so far, he said. Vodafone had its first ORAN deployment in 2019 in the U.K., said Lucia De Miguel Albertos, senior ORAN manager. ORAN requires “continuous work,” she said. “It takes months of efforts, even years … to have a good performance,” she said. Vodafone decided as part of its ORAN program that it had to serve as its own system integrator, Albertos said. In the U.K., Vodafone started its deployment using Samsung as system integrator but plans to take on those responsibilities if all goes as planned, she said. ORAN “is no longer a concept. We have seen it being deployed commercially by many” major carriers “across the globe,” said Prakash Desai, senior director-product management at ORAN company Wind River. The network performance metrics operators are seeing are “at par or better, in some cases, than traditional networks,” he said. Work remains on ORAN standardization, including on the RAN intelligent controller, data operation, automation and accelerating apps, he said. “Interoperability is always complex,” he said. “What is needed now is scale -- more and more tier-one [operators] to jump on the bandwagon and say, ‘Yes, we can do it,’” Desai said. Wind River has worked with Verizon to deploy more than 30,000 virtual nodes carrying network traffic, he said. Verizon’s 5G network covers the New York metro area “and there cannot be a more dense urban network than New York City,” he said: Virtualized nodes have been deployed there and working for more than two years.