FCC Auction 101 for 5G, IoT and other advanced services will take a holiday break. The first auction of upper microwave flexible use service licenses (see 1812130071), in the 28 GHz band, said in a Thursday update that if it's still going Dec. 21 and remains in four rounds per day, bidding ends that day at 1 p.m. EST and resumes 10 a.m. Jan. 3: "We will post an announcement providing the exact time bidding will be suspended on December 21 closer to that date." The auction bidder line also closes for the holidays. Friday, provisionally winning bids were little changed from the previous day, at $687.7 million. There are 40 qualified bidders and PWBs for 2,939 spectrum blocks, with another 133 held aside.

The White House will follow up Thursday’s tech executive meeting (see 1811300036) with additional tech-related gatherings, administration officials said during a news-media call speaking on condition they not be identified. Asked if Amazon, Apple and Facebook were invited Thursday, an official said she believed everyone who was invited attended. Apple CEO Tim Cook was floated as a potential participant for future meetings. Apple and Amazon didn’t comment. Facebook wasn't invited Thursday, a spokesperson said. Thursday’s attendees were said to have included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Rafael Reif, Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Administration participants included White House Deputy Chief of Staff-Policy Coordination Chris Liddell, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, National Economic Council Deputy Director-Economic Policy Shahira Knight and advisers Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Kevin Hassett. The meeting was to have focused on artificial intelligence, 5G and quantum computing.

Many consumers see 5G as a “speed bump” but don’t fully grasp its potential impact on media and entertainment, said a Thursday Intel report. An August Intel report found 58 percent of Americans said they weren’t knowledgeable about 5G, leading the tech company to create a study illustrating new entertainment experiences 5G can enable. Consumers responded favorably in the latest study, said Intel, with 54 percent of participants saying they're willing to switch to 5G for their connected home needs. Among top uses Americans expect to benefit from 5G were next-generation TV (54 percent), augmented instruction (41 percent) and immersive live events (40 percent). Willingness to pay for 5G-enabled experiences skewed younger, with 72 percent of respondents ages 16-25 willing to pay a $20 monthly premium over current 4G service vs. 27 percent of Americans overall. Four in 10 respondents said they would pay an additional $10 a month for 5G to get faster speed (64 percent), reliability (43 percent) or responsiveness (36 percent). Business models will be “reinvented” in the 5G era, said Intel, as companies tap into new revenue streams and attempt to create relevance with their audience at scale. “In the golden era of television, having the best content in the world will cease to be enough if it gets snarled up in an inevitable communications traffic jam,” it said. Over the next decade, media and entertainment companies will be competing for a share of a $3 trillion cumulative wireless revenue opportunity, said Intel, forecasting 5G-enabled experiences to account for $1.3 trillion.

The Trump administration should hold Huawei accountable for “breaking sanctions law,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Thursday in response to Canada’s arrest of the Chinese company’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. “This is a reminder that we need to take seriously the risks of doing business with companies like Huawei and allowing them access to our markets.” Warner urged Canada not to include Huawei technology in its 5G infrastructure. The company didn’t comment.

AT&T will have a 50 percent increase in the capacity of its wireless network in 2019, driven by the FirstNet build, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said Tuesday at a UBS conference. FirstNet is already available in one one-third of the U.S., he said. “I have really, really high expectations in terms of what [FirstNet] does for our 5G deployment, what it does for network quality and capacity over the next few months and then just a new business market for us.” Stephenson also expressed excitement over AT&T’s pending deployment of 5G. “I'm probably about as energized about 5G as any technology innovation that we've ever deployed,” he said.

Dish Network and the Communication Workers of America separately told the FCC that nothing in a revised economic model for T-Mobile buying Sprint should lead to approval (see 1810150031), in redacted filings posted Wednesday in docket 18-197. “Five months after their Public Interest Statement was filed and subsequent to the end of the comment cycle in this proceeding, the Applicants now have come forward with a completely new merger simulation model prepared by a new group of economists,” CWA said: “The merger will not increase employment, will not result in better service to rural America, is not justified by Sprint’s alleged competitive weakness, and is not necessary for the rollout of advanced 5G services.” Dish said, “Like the Applicants’ previous economic analysis, this new and belated effort fails.” The FCC’s informal 180-day clock resumed Tuesday at day 55. T-Mobile Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter said at a UBS conference Tuesday the companies have filed more than 25 million pages of documentation at DOJ. “We are extremely respectful of the process” and have tried to keep it nonpolitical, Carter said. The companies’ econometric model was “in the SEC's own words … the most intensive and complicated model that they've ever seen,” he said. The model demonstrates that combing the networks will mean an eight-fold increase in capacity and 15-fold increase in speeds “versus what either of us could do on a standalone basis, creating a truly differentiated 5G experience here in the U.S.,” he said.

Qualcomm took the wraps off its Snapdragon 855 mobile platform for 5G wireless networks. The platform supports 5G for sub-6 GHz and millimeter-wave bands, it said. The 802.11ay-based platform supports up to 10 Gbps Wi-Fi and beefs up support for TrueWireless Stereo Plus for headset and hearables by optimizing for low latency between left and right earbuds. Lower power consumption allows longer listening time between battery charges. Phones for the first time can play back HDR10+ content, and improved H.265 and VP9 decoding efficiencies will enable longer viewing times per charge, it said. Video capture supports 4K 60 HDR10, HDR10+ and Hybrid Log Gamma with portrait mode (bokeh), 10-bit color depth and Rec. 2020 color gamut. Chipsets are sampling with commercial availability slated for first half 2019.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif, asked the FCC for further information on how it determined 5G technology is safe. The letter follows an October Senate Commerce Committee 5G deployment field hearing that included such questions (see 1810160050). The National Cancer Institute says there's "no consistent evidence" RF emissions increase cancer risks. The federal National Toxicology Program found earlier this year that high exposure to RF radiation caused tumors in tissues surrounding nerves in hearts of male rats (see 1802020042). The NTP findings don't apply to 4G or 5G technologies. “Most of our current regulations regarding radio-frequency safety were adopted in 1996 and have not yet been updated,” Blumenthal and Eshoo wrote Commissioner Brendan Carr. “The FCC's specific absorption rate (SAR) limits do not apply to devices operating above 6.0 GHz; however, 5G devices will operate at frequencies as high as or even exceeding” the 24 GHz band. “To ensure we communicate accurate information to our constituents … we respectfully request you provide to our offices the 5G safety determination from FCC and relevant health agencies that you referred to during the field hearing” by Dec. 17, the lawmakers said. “Please also include current citations.” The FCC didn't comment Wednesday.

Verizon and Samsung will unveil a “proof of concept” 5G smartphone at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui, Hawaii, this week, with plans to bring a 5G phone to market in first-half 2019, the companies said Monday. The prototype is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile platform, the X50 5G NR modem and antenna modules with integrated RF transceiver, RF front-end and antenna elements. Verizon, which launched its 5G Home service in October in some cities (see 1810010028), said 5G mobility service will go live early in 2019 and “expand rapidly.” Samsung, the first company to gain FCC approval for 5G commercial products, partnered with Verizon on its 5G Home since early this year, and worked with the carrier to develop fifth-generation standards, they said.

Corning sees the 5G buildout as “entirely upside” for its optical glass-fiber business, Chief Strategy Officer Jeffrey Evenson told a Credit Suisse investors conference Tuesday. “Historically, fiber has been a pretty small part of cellular builds,” but 5G “changes the game,” he said. Most carriers will see that the most “cost-effective way” to deliver 5G’s bandwidth and latency performance “is to deploy more antennas, a lot more antennas, and each of those is a high-performance antenna that needs to be backhauled with fiber,” said Evenson. Corning estimates each antenna will require eight fibers, “and that's a lot of fiber for us,” so much so that “we're building new plants to supply this fiber,” he said. Corning also developed a supply agreement with Verizon to “de-risk” that investment in new fiber plants, he said. The 5G market opportunity is a “long” one for Corning, he said. The next decade will determine whether 5G is a “fiber-to-the-home-size business or something even bigger than that,” he said.