Ericsson is forecasting a billion 5G subscriptions globally for enhanced mobile broadband by 2023, the company reported Tuesday. Having first been deployed in dense urban areas, 5G will cover more than 20 percent of the world’s population by the end of 2023, it said. The first commercial networks based on 5G New Radio are expected to go live in 2019, with “major deployments” from 2020 on, it said. Ericsson foresees the earliest 5G deployments taking place in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and China, it said. Also citing its report, the equipment maker said "mobile data traffic is expected to surge by eight times ... reaching 110 Exabytes per month by 2023. This corresponds to 5.5 million years of HD video streaming. All regions maintain mobile data traffic growth, with North America showing the highest average usage per smartphone, exceeding 7GB per month by the end of 2017." Fourth-generation LTE "momentum continues" and is expected to reach 5.5 billion subscribers by the end of 2023, out of 9.1 million total mobile subscriptions, it added. Also Tuesday, an FCC member spoke of the importance of 5G (see 1711280031).

Charter Communications misled the New York Supreme Court in arguing the FCC net neutrality draft order (see 1711280024) supports the company’s case that federal law pre-empts New York attorney general allegations that recently acquired Time Warner Cable deceived customers about broadband speeds (see 1707310025), the AG's office said in a Tuesday letter in case 450318-2017. The AG office responded to Charter’s Monday letter to Justice Peter Sherwood about the draft order that pre-empts state and local broadband regulation (see 1711210020). Even though the draft order isn’t final, Charter said it planned to have made the argument at a Tuesday hearing because “the FCC’s proposed holdings regarding federal preemption nevertheless are instructive.” The court shouldn’t allow the argument, the AG office said. “Defendants’ Letter violates Commercial Division Rule 182 because the Draft Rule is not a court decision and Defendants’ Letter contains additional argument.” Draft rules don’t specifically address the transparency rule, it said. The draft "repeatedly and emphatically stresses the continued availability of traditional state remedies and consumer protections," it said. Charter omitted language saying states retain their traditional role enforcing violations of state laws, it said. The draft proposes to "abolish outright the broadband nutritional label and its corresponding 'safe harbor,' … the same safe harbor allowed by the FCC would be impermissibly undermined if Defendants were also required to comply with State law,” it said. New York AG Eric Schneiderman separately has slammed the net neutrality draft (see 1711270042 and 1711210041).

U.S. internet traffic is projected to continue "explosive growth," rising "two-and-a-half times over the next five years," according to a USTelecom analysis Monday of annual IP traffic data in a Cisco index, blogged Patrick Brogan, the association's vice president-industry analysis. "A massive shift toward online consumer video is the primary driver of traffic growth. Other factors explaining the projected growth include increased mobile data traffic, continued broadband adoption, faster broadband connection speeds, new IoT "technologies, and other applications such as virtual reality, cloud services and data analytics," he wrote.

Lack of financial wherewithal continues to be a barrier to broadband access and adoption, speakers said at an FCBA digital divide event Monday night. "Unfortunately, the quality of your broadband ... depends too often on your economic status," said Diane Holland, USTelecom vice president-law and policy, citing affordability and "relevance" as key limiting factors. Lack of money is an impediment for many, said Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center associate director-internet research. He said almost half of survey respondents who lack broadband cited cost as a main factor. "The bottom line is money," said Nicol Turner-Lee, Brookings Institution fellow, saying people in poorer areas generally have less broadband access and choice. She said many low-income minority families rely heavily on smartphones for their broadband service, but students need better access and shouldn't have to rely on Wi-Fi at libraries and other public places. Microsoft's "Airband" initiative using unlicensed TV white spaces aims to help connect 2 million of about 23 million rural residents without adequate broadband (see 1707110015), noted Paul Garnett, director-affordable access initiatives. The FCC is intent on understanding and sharing perspectives of people on the wrong side of the digital divide in its regulatory efforts to close broadband gaps in both rural and urban areas, said Nathan Leamer, policy adviser to Chairman Ajit Pai.

The Ka- and Ku-bands have “served us well,” enabling satellite broadband, but “we need to grow out of them,” with the Q- and V-band critical for the industry’s additional spectrum needs, said Hughes Executive Vice President-Engineer Adrian Morris Tuesday at VSAT Congress. Citing the unified front the wireless industry presents on spectrum issues, he urged a more unified satellite voice and more cooperation between low Earth and geostationary orbit constellation interests. He said it will be tough for satellite to retain all spectrum rights, but said it will have more success with a focus on necessities. The industry needs some dedicated bands, but co-primary status “is not a bad place to be,” he said. He said Hughes is “strongly looking” at Q-band technology, in large part because Earth station hardware advanced to enable use of the band. The very small aperture terminal (VSAT) industry is struggling with data price wars squeezing mar- gins, said Susan Bull, Comsys senior consultant. Demand is growing for satellite-enabled mobile services, but they also are becoming a commoditized service, she said. Almost all 2.3 million consumer VSAT sites in service are in North America, with attempts at offering consumer services in developing markets having failed, Bull said. She said new Hughes and ViaSat efforts to expand into developing markets could succeed, though challenged by affordability issues. Bull said the industry is still struggling to see how it can compete with terrestrial data providers, especially since bandwidth around the globe sometimes is being sold way below cost. VSAT’s key problem—latency—will be tackled by low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit satellites and high-altitude platform stations, and VSATs need to bounce from LEOs to geostationary satellites, and integrate with terrestrial wireless networks, she said. The satellite industry is moving toward a configurable standard production of satellites, assembled “in a Lego-type situation,” which should drive down costs, said Bull. She said there’s growing VSAT distrust of satellite operators as the latter move into VSAT operator markets.

The Wi-Fi Alliance told the FCC the U.S. at the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference should oppose further restrictions to protect radar systems in the 5 GHz band. The band is the only globally harmonized mid-band spectrum available for Wi-Fi, the group commented in docket 16-185. “Wi-Fi has evolved from a nascent technology” to a “vital component of telecommunications infrastructure -- leveraging a limited amount of unlicensed spectrum into connectivity for billions of users,” the alliance said. “The Wi-Fi industry has developed innovative solutions to overcome bandwidth limitations and spectrum congestion while increasing quality.”

Shared mobile/satellite use of the C band under the model being pitched by Intelsat and Intel (see 1710040013) wouldn't compromise certainty, reliability or quality of broadcasting of media content to cable headends, Intelsat Senior Vice President-Sales and Marketing Kurt Riegelman blogged. He said its proposal would have satellite remain co-primary in the 3700-4200 MHz band. Riegelman said avoiding co-frequency use in certain areas but giving satellite the ability to use all 500 MHz elsewhere would preserve quality of programming distribution throughout the band. In a separate blog Tuesday, Intelsat Vice President-Spectrum Strategy Hazem Moakkit said the Intelsat/Intel plan doesn't undermine satellite rights to the C band since trying to apply that approach in other nations "is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole." He said C-band use globally generally is fragmented across numerous operators, unlike in the U.S., so the Intelsat/Intel approach is inherently impractical in other regions. Moakkit called "risk of contagion ... quite low" given the rest of the world uses the 3.4-3.6 GHz band for mobile while 3.4-3.7 GHz in the U.S. is for federal use and citizens broadband radio service. Since the C-band is a capacity band, its 5G use would only be in densely populated areas, he said. He said much of Africa, Asia and South America uses the C-band for a wide variety of services, so joint use isn't viable there.

A "tiny error" by Level 3 shut down the internet in parts of the U.S., blogged Richard Bennett, network engineer citing Wired. "Monday saw a nationwide series of outages" caused by "a misconfiguration at Level 3, an internet backbone company -- and enterprise ISP -- that underpins other big networks," Wired had reported. "Network analysts say that the misconfiguration was a routing issue that created a ripple effect, causing problems for companies like Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, Cox and RCN across the country." Level 3, now owned by CenturyLink, said in a statement: “Our network experienced a service disruption affecting some customers with IP-based services. The disruption was caused by a configuration error. We know how important these services are to our customers. Our technicians were able to restore service within approximately 90 minutes.”

Charter Communication's buy of Time Warner Cable “brought substantial benefits to New York and over the next few years will provide far more than the two billion dollars in net benefits required in the Merger Order,” Charter said in a Friday letter to New York Public Service Commission Chairman John Rhodes. The company responded to concerns raised by a Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) counsel (see 1710030046) and relayed by Rhodes to Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge in an Oct. 12 letter. “Charter has already expended hundreds of millions of dollars in capital and operating expenditures and on internal resources to comply” with merger conditions, Charter replied in Case 15-M-0388. The company redacted many supporting numbers. Rhodes sought “further investigation” into Charter compliance with the PSC order approving the buy of TWC. Rhodes said he shared Cuomo’s concerns about a diminishing workforce and a current labor dispute. Also, Rhodes said Department of Public Service staff received “numerous customer service complaints” about broadband and cable services and staff couldn't independently verify Charter still sells TWC’s “Everyday Low Price” service to new customers.

Consumer willingness to pay extra for faster broadband is much greater at lower speeds, said a Technology Policy Institute paper discussed at a Thursday event. "All the action" in fixed terrestrial and satellite services is in improved data speeds up to 50 Mbps, said TPI President Scott Wallsten, one of the three authors. After that, he said, consumer willingness to pay more drops, flattening out on a graph. "Households’ valuation of bandwidth is highly concave, with relatively little added value beyond 100 Mbps," said the paper, based on two surveys of more than 1,400 people nationwide (one including latency as a factor, the other not). "Households are willing to pay about $2.34 per Mbps ($14 total) monthly to increase bandwidth from 4 Mbps to 10 Mbps, $1.57 per Mbps ($24) to increase from 10 to 25 Mbps, and only $0.02 per Mbps ($19) for an increase from 100 Mbps to 1000 Mbps." Consumers are "willing to pay about $8.66 per month to reduce latency from levels obtained with satellite Internet service to levels more common to wired service," added the paper. "Household valuation of increased data caps is also concave as caps increase from 300 GB to 1000 GB, although consumers place a significant premium on unlimited service." The data suggests the FCC set broadband performance tier bid weights about right in a planned Connect America Fund Phase II auction of broadband support for fixed services, said Jeffrey Prince, an Indiana University business economics and public policy professor. But he said the data suggests the auction's latency penalty is too severe.