The Alarm Industry Communications Committee warned the FCC that 2 million alarm customers must be retrofitted before AT&T shutters its 3G network in six weeks (see 2109150041). AICC representatives recently spoke with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-304. AICC said every one of the comments filed last year on the need for delay other than AT&T's "supports an extension.” AICC said the COVID-19 pandemic is a new challenge: “The country is experiencing numerous shut downs due to Omicron. None of this messaging gives alarm customers the ‘all clear’ to let outsiders like alarm installers … into their homes.”

CTIA announced the launch of its 5G Security Test Bed (STB), which is designed to verify recommendations by the FCC’s Communications Security Reliability and Interoperability Council for 5G networks. It’s based at the University of Maryland, and CTIA, AT&T, Ericsson, T-Mobile, UScellular, Mitre and the school are its founding members, CTIA said Wednesday. “5G is the most secure generation of wireless technology, with enhanced protections built into it from the ground-up,” the group said: “The STB was created to build on this foundation, testing use cases, making recommendations, and further bolstering 5G’s security.” It will start as a 5G network with a 4G core, then change to a stand-alone network.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr met virtually with Taiwan leaders, the FCC said Wednesday. Carr spoke with the country's National Communications Commissioner Yeali Sun and Jeff Liu, director-general of the Department of Archives, Information Management and Telecommunications, for Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Their discussion covered the two countries’ approaches to 5G and network security threats, as well as Commissioner Carr’s view that international telecom bodies should officially recognize Taiwan’s leading regulatory work,” said a news release. “As two vibrant democracies, our countries are vital economic and national security partners,” Carr said: “We also share a core set of values that inform our regulatory approaches to everything from next-gen networks to network security.” Carr has criticized Chinese policies. China's President Xi Jinping has made reunification with Taiwan a priority. China's Embassy didn't comment.

MoffettNathanson said T-Mobile's and Verizon's fixed wireless offerings raise complicated questions. “Consider the network capacity implications of fixed wireless,” the analyst firm emailed Tuesday. “Most investors will by this point understand that the burden of serving homes with a wired broadband replacement is far greater than that of serving individual phones for mobility.” T-Mobile says the average fixed wireless customer is using 35 GB monthly, or about triple the average unlimited LTE user, the firm said: “Total network throughput is largely irrelevant (although, at least for conceptualizing orders of magnitude, it is useful for framing the discussion). What matters is highly localized throughput, and indeed, highly localized throughput -- individual sectors of individual cells -- at specific times of day.” According to OpenVault, the average cable broadband household uses some 434 GB a month, or 40 times more than an average unlimited wireless customer, it said. At current pricing, a typical fixed wireless customer generates about $50 in monthly revenue, or about 10 cents/GB, which compares with $48, or about $4.36/GB, MoffettNathanson said: “As a business matter, it would be hard to imagine prioritizing $0.10 per GB customers over $4.36 per GB customers; one would therefore assume that T-Mobile will be incredibly careful to ensure that [fixed] customers don’t impede the experience of vastly more valuable mobile customers.”

The FAA is warning the public that safety concerns remain as Verizon and AT&T prepare to turn on 5G in the C band next week. New Street’s Blair Levin emailed investors Sunday that the carriers are expected to proceed, after the statement last week from President Joe Biden (see 2201040070). “There is obviously some lingering tension and work to be done,” Levin said: But “the Presidential statement reframes the dispute, essentially binding the [Department of Transportation] and FAA to what the President said the parties agreed to.” The FAA warned that planned buffer zones around U.S. airports aren’t as strict as those in France, on which the U.S. approach is modeled. U.S. zones “only protect the last 20 seconds of flight, compared to a greater range in the French environment,” the FAA said: “5G power levels are lower in France. In the U.S., even the planned temporary nationwide lower power levels will be 2.5x higher than in France. In France, the government required that antenna[s] must be tilted downward to limit harmful interference. Similar restrictions do not apply to the U.S. deployment.” The FAA released the list of 50 airports Friday that will have buffer zones. “Many airports are not currently affected by the new 5G deployment, even though they are not on this list,” the agency said: “These include airports not in the 46 markets where the new service will be deployed and airports that do not currently have the ability to allow low-visibility landings.” The National Air Carrier Association said airlines want "to ensure that the first phase of 5G C-band deployment does not result in significant operational disruptions and that all segments of the industry have input into the process as we move forward.” Airlines For America, meanwhile, withdrew a December petition (see 2201030063) at the FCC asking the agency to block the start of 5G operations in the band, in a filing posted Monday in docket 18-122.

T-Mobile and Crown Castle signed a new 12-year agreement supporting the continued buildout of T-Mobile's nationwide 5G network, allowing increased access to Crown Castle's towers and small cells. The agreement “helps Crown Castle generate long-term tower and small cell revenue growth,” said a news release Thursday. “This agreement is another integral piece of T-Mobile’s ongoing efforts to rapidly expand what is already America’s largest 5G network,” said Neville Ray, T-Mobile president-technology.

President Joe Biden’s “intervention” on the C band (see 2201040070) “signals that the several month-old dispute about potential interference with air travel from 5G services … is over, with the carriers now in a position to start services on January 19,” New Street’s Blair Levin told investors Thursday. Investors were concerned a long delay would harm Verizon and AT&T as they compete with T-Mobile, he said: “In settling the matter, the carriers might have had to alter their service (such as with power levels in a broad geography) or pay a cost (such as paying for new equipment for airlines) that would have affected the companies’ financial results. The carriers’ concessions do neither and we don’t think will have any short-term or long-term impact on those results.” Biden’s involvement may also strengthen the FCC’s hand in resolving future spectrum disputes, Levin said. It also alerted “important decision makers, particularly in the White House, to the risk of inter-agency spectrum disputes hurting American economic interests,” he said.

Carriers will focus this year on finding ways to maximize the use of their existing infrastructure, as they deploy 5G, blogged CommScope Senior Vice President Farid Firouzbakht Tuesday. “The race to 5G has become as much about civil engineering as it is about technology,” he said: “One of our customers said 5G is the biggest civil engineering program of all Gs. With 5G there are new frequencies, meaning new equipment will have to be deployed on top of already crowded towers. Operators face significant challenges as this combination of heavier 4G and 5G equipment puts phone masts under additional strain.” Firouzbakht said another big focus in 2022 will be on strategies to simplify deployments. “We’ll see the first layer of 5G gain traction mainly in cities,” he said. “In addition to faster mobile speeds, the industry will test new use cases such as customised fan experiences, 5G connected collars on farms and remote-controlled ultrasound scans over public 5G networks. The spectrum used for these new services will require densification and operators will seek technology that enables local coverage.” Expect continued focus on open radio access networks, he said. “There is still plenty of work to be done around interoperability between vendors,” he said: “The focus will be on long term planning with specific emphasis on O-RAN as a concept for 4G as operators consider new strategies on how new standards will play out in 5G rollouts, especially in Europe.”

Verizon's 5G Ultra Wideband network will cover 100 million people in more than 1,700 cities by the end of the month, the carrier announced Tuesday.

Results of the 3.45 GHz auction are likely to be made public as early as this week, New Street’s Philip Burnett told investors Monday. Burnett said the consensus seems to be that AT&T spent $9 billion, T-Mobile $6 billion, Dish Network $5 billion and Verizon just over $2 billion. That could be wrong, with Verizon more likely to have taken a pass, he said. “Our conviction that Verizon sat out isn’t especially high, but we’d note that Verizon” management has gone “to serious lengths to point out the deficiencies in 3.45 GHz … when compared to C-Band, which they described as a ‘clean’ band of spectrum,” he said: “We also believe that the equipment initially deployed to towers by Verizon for C-Band isn’t compatible with 3.45 GHz spectrum.”