The "shapefiles" approach to broadband mapping has advantages over requiring providers submit customer locations to an FCC database or a third party, since it wouldn't see people who have opted not to get broadband labeled as unserved, Charter Communications blogged Tuesday. It said using address-level data would miss rural areas that don't have traditional street addresses, and requiring providers submit customer addresses to a third party or the FCC risks the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive consumer information. The cable industry is pushing shapefiles, which are electronic maps showing actual service area contours (see 1903220036).

The California Emerging Technology Fund supported T-Mobile buying Sprint after reaching agreement on commitments, they said in docket A18-07-011. CETF and T-Mobile would partner post-deal to close the digital divide, promote digital inclusion and expand wireless broadband including in rural and remote areas, Monday's motion said. T-Mobile will provide federal Lifeline and California LifeLine services “indefinitely in California to both current and new LifeLine eligible customers for free (along with free handsets),” guaranteeing it “through the end of 2024 at a minimum,” it said. Within five years, the new carrier will add 332,500 new low-income households by spending at least $1 million a year, and add 52,000 low-income California families with children by providing $13.5 million for schools. T-Mobile would provide $4.5 million to community organizations, schools and libraries for digital literacy training for up to 75,000 new low-income households, $5 million for CETF grants to local governments for digital inclusion and $13 million to fund CETF operations. The combining firms committed to deploying 5G to 90 percent of California cellsites specified in T-Mobile’s network plan by 2025, prioritizing upgrades in 10 unserved and underserved areas selected by the company in consultation with CETF and the Rural Regional Consortia, it said. The carriers would expand by 50 percent cells on wheels and cells on light trucks they have for emergencies by 2021. The companies made 5G commitments last week in Hawaii (see 1904040005).

Satellite communications is expected to generate revenue of $119.05 billion between 2018 and 2025, with numerous operators moving toward low-cost global connectivity offerings, Frost and Sullivan said Tuesday. It said revenue opportunities include offering bandwidth and cost flexibility, spot beams based on downstream demand and more downstream demand extended connectivity.

Fixed broadband subscribers should top a billion by year's end on fiber connections growth in Asia Pacific, particularly China, Kagan said Monday. It said 2018 ended with 974.7 million subscriptions and a household penetration rate of 45.5 percent. It said household penetration rates should top 50 percent by 2025. Fiber-to-the-premises was the fastest-growing broadband platform, up 14 percent in 2018, said Kagan. It said China and the U.S. are "by far" the largest fixed broadband markets, with China representing 40.1 percent of the global total and 74.4 percent of Asian broadband subscribers due to the fiber deployments in its national Broadband China project. It said DSL is the dominant multichannel platform in Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with cable dominating in North America and Latin America and fiber subscriptions having overtaken DSL in Asia and Eastern Europe.

With SpaceX planning to launch beginnings of its 4,425-satellite broadband constellation later this year, the company is asking for FCC International Bureau OK to set up a network of six gateway earth stations. According to the six bureau applications Thursday (for example, see here), the earth stations will relay data between the satellites and terrestrial internet exchange points, transmitting in the 14-14.5 GHz band and receiving in the 10.7-12.7 GHz band. The six are planned for locations in California, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin plus two in Washington state. In a separate bureau filing Thursday, SpaceX recapped with an aide Chairman Ajit Pai about safety guarantees involving a request to modify the orbits of some satellites in the planned constellation; the company had similar eighth-floor meetings with aides to other commissioners (see 1903270021).

There has been “significant progress” in the 3.5 GHz citizen broadband radio service, Federated Wireless said in a meeting with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff. Commercial deployment is “imminent” with “full commercial activities to follow,” Federated said in docket 07-100. The company discussed “potential benefits for protection of incumbents, increased spectrum access, and reduced equipment costs that dynamic sharing could bring to the 4.9 GHz band,” Monday's filing said.

The FCC updated rules for fixed TV white spaces devices, in an order approved 5-0 Tuesday and released Wednesday. It said the devices covered are mostly used by wireless ISPs, schools and libraries for wireless backhaul. The new rules require fixed white space devices include a “geo-location capability such as GPS and eliminate the option that permitted the geographic coordinates of a fixed device to be determined by a professional installer.” External geo-location sources by a fixed device are OK “when it is used at a location where its internal geo-location capability does not function, such as deep inside a building.” The agency requires devices to recheck geographic coordinates at least once a day and report the coordinates to the white spaces database. The regulator sought comment on changes sought by NAB in a 2016 NPRM (see 1605060066). It didn't address a request by Microsoft last year seeking other changes (see 1802050031). “We do not intend to prejudge those requests in this item and may consider them in a future notice of proposed rulemaking,” the FCC said. Changes won’t be instantaneous. The agency will permit continued marketing of previously approved devices that don't comply with the new rules until 18 months after the effective date. Wireless ISPs got a change they sought, in an accompanying order on reconsideration. The FCC now will permit white spaces antennas of up to 100 meters in less congested areas, versus the 30-meter limit. “This action will allow for improved wireless broadband service to persons in rural and other underserved areas,” the FCC said. “A 100-meter antenna height above ground level limit will benefit wireless broadband providers and users by permitting antennas to be mounted on towers or other structures at heights sufficient to clear intervening obstacles such as trees and hills that would attenuate the transmitted signal, thereby increasing the range at which the signal can be received.” Requiring "automatic geolocation in white spaces devices will help increase accuracy and protect television viewers from harmful interference,” a NAB spokesperson said. This makes vacant and unlicensed TV channels “more useful for deploying better and more affordable broadband in rural America,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “The commission rejected efforts by broadcasters to try to deter the use of [TV white spaces] for rural broadband in furtherance of their goal to monetize public airwaves they neither paid for nor actually use.”

Deere & Co. urged improving mobile broadband data collection and mapping to identify coverage gaps affecting agriculture. In meetings with aides to every FCC commissioner, company representatives discussed developing "potential mapping tools ... using Commission cell tower data" combined with public Agriculture Department crop information, plus cited state examples of using such tools. "Commission rules and support programs should recognize and address the growing unmet need for mobile broadband coverage ... in areas of agricultural operations," said a filing posted Monday docket 11-10. It also cited GPS' key role in "high precision agriculture and the benefits ... made possible through continuing access to Galileo satellites." USTelecom and telco members "stressed the importance of granular data to make federal funding programs, including CAF 3, as targeted as possible." The group's mapping proposal also would allow "auction participants to bid with the full knowledge of exactly how many locations in a census block require service and, importantly, exactly where those locations are," said a filing Friday on meetings with Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force and Office of Economic and Analytics. "Future funding programs should target all unserved locations, not just those previously defined as 'high cost,' because the market has failed to provide service regardless of predictions about their economic viability." The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is "deeply concerned with potentially significant overstatement of fixed broadband deployment" due to current Form 477 guidelines, said a filing on a meeting Wireline Bureau staffers. "The issue of reporting of served locations within census blocks, particularly rural census blocks, is conflated unnecessarily with the challenges of identifying locations in rural census blocks. The two considerations are distinct and can and should be addressed separately."

The top cable companies added about 2.9 million broadband subscribers in 2018, while telcos lost 470,000, for the fourth straight year of net broadband losses, Leichtman Research Group reported Thursday of 98.2 million total customers. In 2017, telcos had 620,000 net losses vs. gains of 2.7 million for cable. At the end of 2018, cable had 65 percent share of the broadband market, highest since 2003, led by Comcast with 27.2 million customers and Charter Communications with 25.3 million, and phone companies had 35 percent share, led by AT&T with 15.7 million subscribers.

“Speed matters and cable has a better mousetrap,” Pivotal Research Group's Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote investors Thursday. Cable took 100 percent share of broadband net new subscriptions in Q4, 770,000 vs. the 795,000 Pivotal forecast, while telcos lost 130,000. The analyst sees “material cable data sub growth” ahead, at the expense of telcos’ copper architecture, currently numbering about 20 million subscribers, while fixed 5G is an “unlikely material competitor” over three-five years. U.S. broadband household penetration is 83.1 percent. VMVPDs reversed course and lost 75,000 subscribers vs. a gain of 1 million a year ago, Wlodarczak said, with vMVPD players finding their subscribers are “highly price sensitive.” Price hikes were met with “significant churn,” led by AT&T’s DirecTV Now. VMVPDs are “basically offering consumers fewer channels at about the same price without the quality of service,” Wlodarczak said, and limited credit checks are bringing in “very low-quality average subscribers.” The December quarter was “ugly” for pay TV, which had a 100 percent increase in subscriber losses, 300,000 more than Pivotal forecast, for the 10th consecutive quarterly subscription decline. Cable’s 320,000 subscriber losses in the quarter were in line with forecasts, while satellite TV lost 810,000, its worst quarter ever, which Wlodarczak attributed to cable’s increased bundling of broadband with “an improving video product.” At year-end, household penetration of traditional pay TV was 72.6 percent.