The first of a series of inter-regional ITU workshops in preparation for World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 was held earlier this month, with topics including international regulatory frameworks and frequency allocations for high altitude platforms, railway communications and non-geostationary satellite constellations, the ITU said Thursday. Among attendees were regional groups such as the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity, Arab Spectrum Management Group, African Telecommunications Union, European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, Inter-American Telecommunication Commission and Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications, ITU said. Radiocommunication Bureau Director Francois Rancy said 5G development "is putting a lot of pressure on manufacturers and operators to start technology developments and network deployments ahead of WRC-19 decisions," and ITU is working toward early consensus on global harmonization of such bands.
With 5G needing "substantial and sustained infrastructure deployment," the FCC's newest member wants "more attention on this issue and potential solutions," including job training, he told a Labor Department workshop Tuesday on wireless apprenticeships and workforce development. Acknowledging "no direct regulatory role for the FCC," Commissioner Brendan Carr noted a "shortage of skilled workers that can deploy the small cells, distributed antenna systems, and other network facilities." The move to fifth-generation wireless networks "is going to require substantial and sustained infrastructure deployment," an up to 100-fold increase in small cells and millions of miles of new fiber, said prepared remarks from Carr, leading a wireless infrastructure proceeding. "This transition could result in $275 billion in network investment." With federal, tribal, state and local laws "not tailored" for this, he cited FCC moves including a twilight tower public notice on the agenda for commissioners' Dec. 14 meeting (see 1711220026). Ericsson sees a billion 5G subscriptions globally for enhanced mobile broadband by 2023 (see 1711280034).
The C-band is a likely target for global consensus for launching commercial 5G in 2019, ABI Research said Monday. It said industry field trials and lab work often have focused on millimeter wave frequencies, but recent regulatory announcements by close to 20 countries point to the C-band being the most common spectrum identified for 5G. It said a wide variety of low-, medium- and high-band spectrum will be necessary long term for 5G, but in the near term, millimeter wave spectrum use for 5G services is hampered by technology challenges and availability. Meanwhile, C-band with its global harmonization is a bigger opportunity for large-scale deployment, it said.
As the industry awaits the market deployment of 5G, there’s “good activity still on 4G,” said Analog Devices CEO Vincent Roche on a Tuesday earnings call. With the “heavy activity on 4.5G,” and 5G in market “trials right now,” Roche thinks “the boundaries between 4.5G and 5G are blurring to some extent,” he said. “Indications” are strong the 5G market will “start to ramp” in late 2018 into 2019, and “peak to 2020,” he said. With the challenges of “getting 5G into play,” and with the increasing “demands for mobile data, we're still working hard on the classical problems of integration, design agility, power consumption,” he said.
Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee members adopted subcommittee findings on 5G (see 1711150019) and had some other tech updates at Friday's CSMAC meeting. Chief of Staff Glenn Reynolds of NTIA said his agency is "close" to having a new head, with the delay in the presidential signature on David Redl's confirmation paperwork (see 1711160043) perhaps due to President Donald Trump having been in Asia. Redl "could be on board any minute," Reynolds said. Associate NTIA administrator Paige Atkins said her agency is working with the FCC and DOD on a citizens broadband radio service rollout, including work toward standards and a certification process for the spectrum access systems (SAS) that would enable CBRS devices. She said the SAS certification process could start as early as March.
CTIA withdrew applications to be designated a spectrum access system (SAS) administrator and environmental sensing capability (EMC) operator. It's "a business decision" independent of its focus to make the 3.5 GHz band available for 5G and other uses, it said in a docket 15-319 filing posted Monday. CTIA said its interest in being an SAS administrator and EMC operator involved mainly ensuring its member companies had enough opportunity to use the 3.5 GHz band, but the number of companies seeking that designation points to a likely competitive SAS and ESC market. The band can be used for citizens broadband radio service.
Microsoft is coordinating TV white space deployments in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to help restore connectivity that has been down since hurricanes Maria and Irma. In the mountainous Utuado area of Puerto Rico, that spectrum has been used to re-establish connectivity to a food distribution site, a health clinic and the University of Puerto Rico, Technology and Corporate Responsibility General Manager Shelley McKinley blogged Monday. Those sites also are to act as internet hot spots for the community, it said. White spaces also reconnected city hall in Humacao, Puerto Rico, and a variety of sites in the Virgin Islands in St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, it said, adding the spectrum is soon to be deployed in Barranquitas and San Lorenzo in Puerto Rico. Microsoft said the work is being done in conjunction with internet connectivity nongovernmental organization NetHope, government agencies, local ISPs and local TV broadcasters.
The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee’s 5G Subcommittee recommends NTIA open one or a series of notices of inquiry or requests for information on bands that could be considered for sharing. Recommendations by the subcommittee are set for a vote at a CSMAC meeting Friday. NTIA also should “develop a list of information that is needed for interference mitigation that would improve sharing,” the subcommittee said. “This list should include information about the legacy waveform and operation that is required to design and develop sharing approaches, and the information needed to co-exist.” The subcommittee said NTIA should ask the FCC to consider “a counterpart processes inquiry on which commercial bands and which technology steps should be considered for bi-directional sharing.” The report backs more use of beamforming, active antenna systems, MIMO and network/cooperative MIMO as ways to limit interference. NTIA should investigate these technologies “based on spectrum, technology, application, and functional requirements of the federal communication systems that [need] to share spectrum with ... non-federal entities,” the subcommittee said. NTIA also should “expedite” a workshop on bidirectional sharing, as recommended by CSMAC last year (see 1606080050), the group said. Bidirectional sharing would allow federal agencies access to some commercial bands. The group wants more concentration on receiver standards. “There are no regulations governing the design of wireless receivers, or their performance,” the report said. “Protection from noise and interference is achieved through stringent requirements for the performance parameters like ACS (adjacent channel selectivity), blocking characteristics, spurious response, and intermodulation response.” CSMAC also plans to consider a report by its Identifying Key Characteristics of Bands for Commercial Deployments and Applications Subcommittee. “The subcommittee recommends that NTIA give consideration to the following key characteristics when reviewing potential new spectrum bands for reallocation or use by the commercial industry: (1) propagation and coverage; (2) capacity; (3) contiguity; (4) international harmonization (scale); and (5) incumbency issues." It recommends against the agency “rigidly” defining what are low-, mid- and high-band spectrum bands “as this metric is dynamic and ever changing.”
The FCC deserves credit for making more high-frequency spectrum available for 5G, expected at the Thursday commissioners’ meeting, but now the agency has to schedule an auction, blogged Stacey Black, AT&T assistant vice president-federal policy. “Now that the Commission has the 5G ball rolling with spectrum allocations, we urgently need to get to the next step -- auctioning this newly allocated spectrum so that mobile broadband providers can deploy as quickly as possible,” Black wrote Wednesday. “As an industry, we believe the best timing for auctioning the 28 GHz and 37-40 GHz bands is by December 2018. By this time, chipsets and equipment will be commercially available, FCC service rules will have been finalized, and standards will have evolved to a point that permits commercial 5G network deployments in 2019.” At the meeting, regulators will take up an order reallocating the 24 and 47 GHz bands for 5G (see 1710270030). Wireless industry officials expect an auction by the end of next year of bands reallocated in 2016 (see 1711030045). Citing the blog, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly tweeted Wednesday that he concurs on "need & timeliness of 5G spectrum auctions," but the agency "has a statutory hiccup" and he's supporting "targeted bills" by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Doris Matsui, D-Calif. and by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. According to O'Rielly's office, those were references to Guthrie and Matsui's Spectrum Auctions Deposits Act and to similar legislation Thune introduced last Congress and is working on again, though it hasn't been reintroduced.
Equipment maker Radwin agreed to pay a $95,000 fine for selling noncompliant U-NII devices, which allowed users to modify settings in a way that could cause harmful interference to terminal Doppler weather radar (TDWR) systems the FAA uses to detect potentially hazardous weather conditions for aircraft. “The Commission’s requirements ensure that devices that emit radio frequency radiation comply with the Commission’s technical requirements and do not cause harmful interference to Federal agency public safety systems, such as TDWR, or to other authorized Federal and non-Federal communications systems, once the devices are marketed to the public,” said an order and consent decree by the FCC Enforcement Bureau. “To settle this matter, Radwin admits that it violated the Commission’s equipment authorization and marketing rules with respect to these noncompliant U-NII devices.” The closely held firm "manufactures and distributes broadband wireless systems," the bureau said. Radwin fully cooperated with an investigation, the bureau said.