Howard Buskirk

CTIA President Meredith Baker warned Tuesday that the U.S. will fall behind other countries unless Congress restores FCC auction authority, in remarks to the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas. Baker quoted Paul Milgram, the economist whose work led to the first spectrum auction. The loss of auction authority is “nuts,” she said. The agency’s auction authority lapsed in March 2023 (see 2303100084).

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up early in its new term whether reimbursement requests submitted to the Universal Service Administrative Co.-administered E-rate program are “claims” under the False Claims Act (FCA). On Nov. 4, justices will hear Wisconsin Bell v. U.S., a case from the 7th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (see 2405220039).

The Heritage Foundation argued the FCC should abandon rules that let schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. Its position was made in comments on a Further NPRM. Commissioners approved the FNPRM 3-2 in July (see 2407180024). Other commenters supported the order, urging tweaks that could make the program more effective. Comments were due Friday, with most posted Monday in docket 21-31.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated on Friday for a commissioner vote rules that would expand parts of the 6 GHz band where new very-low power (VLP) devices can operate without coordination, beyond the initial 850 MHz commissioners approved last year (see 2310190054). When the FCC took comment earlier this year, Wi-Fi advocates and 6 GHz incumbents disagreed sharply on whether to expand VLP use of the band (see 2404290035).

Before the launch of early 5G networks, the consensus was that business-to-business (B2B) communications would be a “big opportunity,” Pablo Iacopino, GSMA Intelligence head-research and commercial content, said during a Mobile World Live webcast on Friday. For consumers, 5G adoption has been “very, very fast” compared to the roll-out of 3G and 4G, he said. When carriers think about providing business customers with 5G, they consider connectivity a first step only, he said. “Really, the incremental value comes from services beyond connectivity,” including cloud and edge services and serving IoT networks, he said. Based on a GSMA survey, businesses say they are willing to spend about 9% of their revenue on average globally on digital transformation, he said. That’s “a big number, and it means there are opportunities for many players to catch a piece of this 9%,” he said: “Enterprises are willing to spend on 5G in order to drive digital transformation.” Different businesses have varying needs and providers must “customize” what they offer. After a slow start, there’s growing momentum behind 5G standalone, “which is the real 5G.” In most places, said David Markland, chief product officer at Inseego, 5G began on 4G core networks, “reusing 4G spectrum with a little bit of efficiency gain, and then it built from there, having more and more spectrum.” Inseego provides wireless gear. A lot of people had a 5G icon on their phones years ago but weren’t seeing changes over 4G, and “personal experience, some days it was worse,” Markland said. That has changed as major carriers deploy “a lot more spectrum” on their networks. “We have 10 times more bandwidth now than … back in the 4G era.”

Fixed wireless access isn’t beating fiber, the Fiber Broadband Association told the FCC in a new filing, responding to a recent CTIA report (see 2409230020). Meanwhile, during a webinar iconectiv released Thursday, speakers said all signs indicate the FWA market is taking off, with continued growth likely.

DC BLOX sees a business model for building regional data centers in places like Greenville, South Carolina, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, Alan Poole, general counsel of the Atlanta-based company, said during an Incompas webinar Thursday. As connected devices became more powerful, tech companies realized they needed to move data centers and computing power closer to users, Poole said in a conversation with Incompas CEO Chip Pickering during the session. COVID-19 spurred tech growth, Poole said: “The investment in digital infrastructure around that time to help meet the pace of demand was wild, awe-inspiring, and we’re still going through that,” he said. A key element DC BLOX considers is how welcoming a city will be to investment, as data centers require access to land and electricity. The company also examines potential tax incentives to build. Policymakers must ask what they’ll do if one developer takes all the available power, which is “happening all over the country,” Poole said. One center can require up to one gigawatt of power, which is "eye-popping.” Accordingly, the ability of data centers to generate power onsite, including “green” energy, will become increasingly important, he said. Communities should decide whether they want to compete “because there are many [competing] markets” and they are offering tax and other incentives. “At least at DC BLOX we’re doing everything we reasonably can to head off community concerns as soon as possible, because it makes more sense financially.” The availability of large enough fiber pipelines to handle growing demands is also a concern. “Is there enough fiber on all these routes?” Poole asked. “It was assumed, until very recently, that we were never going to need materially bigger conduits and that has proven absolutely untrue.” Some markets getting high-speed internet for the first time don’t have a nearby internet exchange point yet, allowing ISPs to exchange data with other networks: “That’s where the true internet compute happens and if you’re not close to one of those exchanges, you have problems with things like latency that might make real-time videoconferencing … unworkable.” Pickering said he loves the focus on “Tier 2” markets. “Those are great emerging hubs” and data centers “are a critical component and a critical piece of the infrastructure to make those hubs grow, succeed, prosper.” As communications technology rapidly evolves, “electricity is still kind of in the old world,” Pickering said. As the U.S. competes with China, “electricity and energy really is the supply-chain critical component.”

U.S. ISPs face a bigger cybersecurity threat today because nations representing that threat work together like never before, Wilkinson Barker’s Clete Johnson said Wednesday. Other experts said cybersecurity plans are rightly a requirement of receiving funding under the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.

While expectations are that 6G will be commercialized by 2030, large scale deployments will likely come later, Milap Majmundar, AT&T director-advanced radio access network technology, standards and spectrum, said Tuesday at RCR Wireless’ 6G Forum. In addition, other speakers warned that finding new licensed bands for 6G could prove difficult.

NTIA will release a report “later this fall” on the agency’s May request for comment about the state of 6G development (see 2405230010), Lauriston Hardin, NTIA chief technical adviser, said during RCR Wireless’ 6G Forum on Tuesday (see 2410010033). Comments were filed at NTIA in August (see 2409040032). “We’re working through it now,” he said. “I’m not allowed to give any more comment than that at the moment.” NTIA’s Office of International Affairs issued the request, so some of the focus will be international, he noted. “Our job, in part, is to stay ahead and talk about the policies that will be put in place, or possibly regulations that will be put in place, to help foster as well as maintain new developments in the marketplace,” Hardin said: “We’ve asked the marketplace, ‘Tell us about 6G. Tell us about your use cases. Tell us about when new things will happen. Tell us about the policies you think should be in place that would promote things.’” Hardin stressed the importance of focusing on what 6G can do for consumers. “Engineers like to engineer and think technology is in and of itself a great thing.” We’re still dealing with “the unfulfilled promises of 5G.” Hardin said one of the big questions NTIA is addressing is whether a way can be found to “effectively share” the lower 3 GHz band with DOD (see 2409050032). “One of the things there is airborne radar.” Dynamic spectrum sharing isn’t “a silver bullet,” he said. “Most of the spectrum that we look at, especially sub-6 [GHz], is going to have to be shared.” Anton Monk, senior vice president-strategy at Cohere Technologies, said people view 5G as early in its deployment because carriers have been unable to identify many new use cases. “The consumer hasn’t really seen any significant changes, certainly not enough to pay an extra $10 a month for,” Monk said. “There is a lot of valid concern” that we’re just “following the 10-year cycle” and trying to keep up with other countries that “have huge government-funded initiatives to keep pushing the nest generation,” he said: “Regardless, this is the pace that we’re on, and we just need to make sure that we set expectations correctly” and that we pick use cases “that are really valuable and have paying customers.” Marketing for 5G started early and made too many promises, said Michele Polese, research assistant professor at Northeastern University.