There were questions about 5G, how it will look in rural markets and if it could help or hurt the digital divide, at a conference Wednesday in Providence, Rhode Island. GCI will "have to look outside the box to figure out what solutions that we’re not currently thinking of are going to work in a lot of these markets,” said Kara Azocar, regulatory counsel-federal affairs. “We have to be innovative,” she told the Competitive Carriers Association conference. “Will 5G exacerbate an urban-rural divide on connectivity and are we going to end up with a second tier internet once you get out of the cities?” asked David Goldman, SpaceX director-satellite policy. “It doesn’t have to be that way.” Service in rural areas “will take work,” he said. “It’s going to take solutions that haven’t necessarily been the ones that you had thought of for previous generations.” ACA member GCI exists because it wants to bring the same services as in urban areas, said Rob Shema, the association's executive vice president-member services and finance. Rural providers haven’t “quite figured out” 5G in rural places, “but they will,” he said. “When folks say that 5G is not going to exist in rural America, that’s completely false,” Shema said: “It may look different and feel different.” At the low end, the industrial IoT will have as much combined value as the entire communications industry today, Tod Sizer, Nokia Bell Labs vice president-smart optical fabric and device research, said Wednesday. In Germany, wireless robots are transforming manufacturing, Sizer said. “They found that the wired robots were just getting in the way.” Industrial IoT will have lots of opportunity in the mining industry, he said, where “there’s a lot of need for advanced safety" and autonomous movement of people and machines. Early tests found IoT precision agriculture requires 23 percent less fertilizer and 15 percent less seed, with production increases of 27 percent, he said. ISPs also target agriculture (see 1908150057).

Huawei filed at the FCC documents it said show many top U.S. telecom players have ties to China. Commissioners approved a supply chain NPRM 5-0 in April 2018 (see 1804170038). Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said Tuesday the FCC should wrap up work on rules (see 1909170044). "Numerous telecommunications companies have connections with China that are equally or, in many cases, more significant than those of Huawei,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-89. “This information highlights the irrationality and arbitrariness of premising any exclusion of Huawei from the USF program on Huawei’s supposed connections with China.”

Ericsson will build a 300,000-square-foot fully automated smart factory in Lewisville, Texas, producing 5G and advanced antenna system radios. The factory will begin operations early 2020 and be “powered by Ericsson 5G solutions tailored for the industrial environment,” the company said Thursday: “Fast and secure 5G connectivity will enable agile operations and flexible production.”

5G awareness is under 50 percent of U.S. broadband households, blogged Parks Associates Wednesday, but interest is high when consumers are presented with potential benefits. Broader service availability and marketing will raise awareness over the next few years, said analyst Craig Leslie, saying nearly half of broadband households surveyed expressed interest in replacing their fixed-line internet service with 5G home services. But most U.S. consumers won’t subscribe to 5G services soon due to limited availability, currently at 30 cities, with fewer than 50 projected by the end of 2020. To maximize the short reach of high-band frequencies, carriers are limiting coverage to specific locations in high-density urban areas and are likely to continue doing so in future launches, delaying arrival of residential services in larger metropolitan areas, said Leslie. Service costs could also be prohibitive, with carriers reserving 5G for higher-priced plans; Verizon, for instance, is adding a $10 fee, he said. Parks research shows “few consumers are willing to pay a premium in order to upgrade to 5G,” said the analyst. Hardware availability and pricing are also inhibitors to adoption; Apple isn't offering 5G phones this year, and those on the market are priced $200-$300 above equivalent non-5G models. Carriers are adopting their own standards, limiting devices to one carrier’s network, he said.

The FCC created its first two innovation zones, in New York and Salt Lake City. They're city-scale test beds for advanced wireless communications and network research, including 5G networks, it said Wednesday. The beds extend the geographic areas where licensed experimental program licensees can do tests, allowing “flexibility to conduct multiple non-related experiments under a single authorization within a defined geographic area” while “protecting incumbent services against harmful interference,” it said. Experimental program license holders licensed to operate elsewhere may use the zones, it said. An Office of Engineering and Technology public notice Wednesday provides details, on docket 19-257.

House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he's among lawmakers raising concerns about language in the Senate-passed FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (S-1790) that would call for DOD to work with the FCC and NTIA to establish a spectrum sharing R&D program aimed at sharing between 5G technologies, federal and nonfederal incumbent systems (see 1906270051). The language says DOD, the FCC and NTIA officials should, by May, propose an “integrated spectrum automation enterprise strategy” that will allow Defense to “address management of [spectrum], including Federal and non-Federal spectrum” shared by DOD “that could be used for national security missions in the future, including on a shared basis.” House Commerce leaders “aren't happy at all” about the Senate NDAA language, Walden told reporters. “We don’t need the Pentagon replacing the NTIA” in making “spectrum allocation decisions for the federal government.” Walden isn't among the Republicans named Tuesday to the House-Senate conference committee that will attempt to reconcile S-1790 and the House-passed NDAA (HR-2500); Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., is the GOP representative from House Commerce. Other policy issues to be debated include differing provisions on national security concerns about Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE (see 1907220053).

Addressing better emergency alert origination and possible security risks 5G networks might inherit from previous communications networks, the FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will issue reports next year and into early 2021, said CSRIC working group chairmen Tuesday. The 2018 false emergency alert in Hawaii (see 1801160054) shows there's no good emergency alert system differentiation between tests and actual alerts, said Craig Fugate, former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator. Broadcasters voluntarily carry alerts, and without a strong working relationship between them and originators, there's a risk of fatigue, especially for amber and silver alerts, he said. Fugate said focus also is needed on cybersecurity and spoofing, to be sure alert originators are authenticated. He said the working group plans to produce recommendations by September 2020. Broadcasters increasingly use social media to communicate when they lose power to transmitters, newsrooms or towers due to disasters or major weather events, and social media will be a focus of reports on improving broadcast resiliency, said Florida Association of Broadcasters President Pat Roberts. It will look at updated best practices for prepping for natural disasters, he said. Its draft is due in January and final report in March, he said. Two working groups are looking at 5G security. Nsight Chief Technical Officer Lee Thibaudeau said network architectures sometimes incorporate security risks from other networks, and in 5G's case that could lead to confidentiality and network availability issues. He said the group looking at 5G vulnerabilities possibly carried forward from other wireless networks expects to have a report in June on those risks, followed by December 2020 recommendations on updates to 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards. Qualcomm Director-Engineering Farrokh Khatibi said his group's related reports on risks potentially introduced by 3GPP standards will come in September 2020, and on ways of mitigating those in March 2021. The 911 move from legacy to IP networks carries potential security risks, especially when those networks are blended, said Mary Boyd, West Safety Services vice president-government and regulatory affairs. A working group report identifying the security risks in legacy, transition and next-generation 911 networks is expected in June, she said, followed by a December report measuring the risk magnitude and remediation costs. Verisign Chief Security Officer Danny McPherson said a report on session initiation protocol security vulnerabilities that could affect communication service provision is expected by March 2021.

As 5G launches, everyone and every community must benefit, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks told the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference Friday. We're “talking about a world with smart manufacturing, automation, and driverless cars,” Starks said: “I don’t have to tell you how many people drive cars for a living -- whether it is a taxi cab or an Uber or a Lyft. The benefits of a 5G world need to do just that -- benefit all of us.” Starks said the U.S. must “re-train and up-skill our most senior workers who will be displaced” by new technology. Low-income communities are taking a hit because of technology, he said. “These communities are disproportionately targeted by biased artificial intelligence systems yet at the same time they are not captured by hiring algorithms that scour the internet to make determinations about job candidates,” he said. Starks said Congress should pass HR-4008 by House Democrats to ban the Department of Housing and Urban Development from using facial recognition technology in most of its housing (see 1907250062).

The U.S. shouldn’t make Huawei part of trade negotiations with China, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told Yahoo Finance: “National security and Huawei being embedded in your network, that is a non-negotiable item.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, meanwhile, slammed Australia for keeping Chinese companies out of the 5G supply chain. “Under the pretext of national security, Australia was the first country to ban Chinese companies from its 5G network roll-out without any evidence of risks. It is blatant discrimination against Chinese companies,” Hua said, according to a transcript: “Australia has also been lecturing other countries about the 5G network and encouraging them to follow suit. Such disgraceful and immoral conduct is against basic market principles and international rules.”

Qualcomm and Ericsson completed the first 5G new radio (NR) data connection, compliant with global 3rd Generation Partnership Project 5G NR Release 15, in stand-alone (SA) operating mode. They can "support the 2nd phase of 5G commercialization with SA deployments that utilize a new 5G core network to provide more 5G capabilities -- including guaranteed quality of service and network slicing" to further the industrial IoT and more, the companies said Thursday.