The Senate Commerce Committee plans a July 25 hearing on maintaining U.S. leadership in 5G and the technology's importance “to meet the growing consumer demand for reliable broadband services.” The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. CTIA President Meredith Baker, Qualcomm Senior Vice President-Spectrum Strategy and Technology Dean Brenner and Charter Communications Senior Vice President-Wireless Technology Craig Cowden will testify, the committee said. Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told us the hearing will also be an opportunity to examine the Streamlining the Rapid Evolution and Modernization of Leading-Edge Infrastructure Necessary to Enhance (Streamline) Small Cell Deployment Act (S-3157), which he and Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, filed in June. The bill aims to ease barriers to 5G and other broadband deployment by implementing a “reasonable process and timeframe guidelines” for state and local consideration of small-cell applications. Local and state governments' ongoing opposition to S-3157 remains a significant hurdle to advancing it beyond Senate Commerce (see 1710310057, 1712070075, 1804130057 and 1807050029).

The U.S. wireless industry is starting the transition from 4G to 5G, “with significant growth in cell sites and data-only devices,” CTIA said Tuesday in its annual survey. “Mobile data continues to skyrocket.” The association reported Americans used a record 15.7 trillion megabytes of mobile data in 2017 -- nearly quadrupling since 2014. The IoT is starting to surge, the group said. Data-only devices in the U.S., including connected cars, IoT devices and wearables, increased 20 percent in 2017 to 126.4 million. CTIA found industry deployed a record 323,448 cellsites at the end of 2017. “Analysts project that wireless carriers will need to deploy roughly 800,000 modern wireless antennas -- small cells -- in the next few years,” CTIA said.

Top U.S. priorities at the ITU plenipotentiary meeting this fall in Dubai include improved ITU transparency and management, and avoiding a global regulatory framework for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and IoT, said FCC International Bureau Multilateral and Regional Affairs Branch Chief Kelly O’Keefe at an FCBA event Wednesday. Roxanne McElvane Webber, bureau deputy chief-global strategy and negotiation division, said the U.S. has waged "a big campaign [with] big people behind it" for Doreen Bogdan-Martin, chief of ITU’s Strategic Planning and Membership Department, to be elected ITU telecommunication development sector secretary. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and NTIA Administrator David Redl have endorsed her (see 1803130029). McElvane Webber said broadband investment globally outside the U.S. is principally mobile, with "a very, very pronounced disparity" by gender in uptake. She said the division wants and is trying to promote more formal talks with industry about what companies are finding in different countries and international regions. O'Keefe said that, like the U.S., numerous countries are trying to extend broadband networks to remote and rural areas, though methods of doing so vary. She said other countries also are following how the U.S. approaches 5G deployment issues such as spectrum availability and infrastructure. She said the division also fields a lot of questions from other countries about over-the-top regulation, though the FCC doesn't do that.

The U.S. government has the full backing of President Donald Trump as it moves forward on 5G, NTIA Administrator David Redl told the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Monday in a speech in Stockholm. “The United States, through private industry activity and government policy, has made 5G development a priority goal,” Reld said. Trump is a “champion of the move to 5G, appreciating its importance to economic development and opportunity, and its importance to our national security strategy,” he said. Fifth-generation wireless will be “a true game changer, promising to enable entirely new and re-imagined services and devices that will take advantage of the technology’s high-speed, high capacity, and low latency attributes,” he said. Redl asked for support for Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the U.S. in her campaign to head ITU’s Development Sector: "Doreen would be the first woman to hold any of the ITU’s elected offices in the Union’s 153-year history.”

5G networks will play a “paramount role” in autonomous vehicle connectivity, said Gartner Thursday. With 5G networks expected to be as much as 10 times more efficient than those of 4G, communications service providers (CSPs) can use that “new level of network capability” to seize “future opportunities” with manufacturers of self-driving vehicles “in the fields of driver safety and data processing and management,” it said. Autonomous vehicle systems and sensors are expected to generate “unprecedented amounts of data,” which will allow automotive OEMs to “extract valuable data insights while limiting the associated provisioning costs,” it said. "CSPs have an opportunity to become strategic partners for OEMs,” it said. Gartner predicts by 2025, autonomous vehicles collectively will upload more than 1 terabyte of vehicle and sensor data a month to the cloud, an increase from the 30 gigabytes uploaded currently from “advanced connected cars,” it said. “To seize the opportunity, CSPs need to make sure 5G is included in the design of future vehicles, in the fields of safety and connectivity,” it said.

LTE is becoming the most used wireless cellular technology, with 38.5 percent share in Q1, 5G Americas said Friday. North America leads the world with 76 percent of connections LTE, the group said. “Latin America and the Caribbean had significant growth of LTE market share to 31.5 percent at the end of 1Q,” 5G Americas said. “5G is on the horizon and will be built upon the most solid of foundations -- LTE,” said President Chris Pearson. “We are already hearing news of planned 5G deployments beginning later in 2018 and early 2019, however, LTE will continue to grow until 2022, when we will begin to see some substantial uptake in 5G connections.”

A 3rd Generation Partnership Project plenary meeting approved completion of release 15 5G stand-alone (SA) new radio standards, NTT DoCoMo said Thursday in a release listing AT&T, Dish Network, LG, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Verizon, ZTE and many others. The group approved specifications for non-stand-alone (NSA) operation in December. “The whole industry is taking the final sprint towards 5G commercialization,” the company said. “Completion of SA specifications which complements the NSA specifications, not only gives 5G NR the ability of independent deployment, but also brings a brand new end-to-end network architecture.” This is key to deployment of 5G, said Asha Keddy, Intel vice president-Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group: “Industry has not just taken more steps to advance the future of 5G, but has gone from a walk to a jog to a run, and is now in a full-blown sprint to commercialization.”

South Korea is poised to jump into the mid-band fray with auction of 3.5 GHz spectrum for 5G starting Friday, as the FCC is working toward finalizing revised rules. CTIA is asking the FCC to move quickly to free more mid-band spectrum. “The wireless spectrum being auctioned by South Korea’s government will be available for commercial use by December of this year,” CTIA said. “Recent research commissioned by CTIA revealed that the U.S. ranks sixth out of 10 lead nations studied in terms of mid-band spectrum availability. China ranked first.” The association noted Spain plans a mid-band auction in July, and Australia and Italy plan to launch mid-band auctions in coming months. The FCC didn't comment. “The leadership of the United States is not guaranteed -- especially when you consider that the FCC is timidly moving to auction spectrum for 5G one band at a time instead of boldly all together," responded Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "It also has yet to put on a public calendar just when additional airwaves will be made available. These are confusing signals to send to the marketplace. We need to fix them.”

A “fictional” city is shaping FCC debate on broadband infrastructure deployment and “priming the pump for Washington preempting cities and towns and preventing them from having a role in what is happening in their own backyards,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Saturday remarks. With its local officials who “view improvements skeptically,” delay applications and charge big fees for pole attachments, the imagined city is a “caricature based on some outliers and stitched-together stories,” she said. “But this city is the one dominating discussion in Washington.” Rosenworcel applauded San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) for resigning from the FCC Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee and negotiating his city's own agreement with AT&T (see 1801250049 and 1805020046). With few local members, the BDAC “was loath to admit that cities and towns could be something other than impediments to broadband deployment -- they could be partners,” she said. Liccardo showed “it is possible to create a solution that delivers value for everyone and all broadband deployment does not have to come at the expense of local control,” Rosenworcel said. Carrots are better than sticks, she said. “We can begin by developing model codes for small cell and 5G deployment -- but we need to make sure they are supported by a wide range of industry and state and local officials. Then we need to review every infrastructure grant program at the Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Transportation and build in incentives to use this model.” Rosenworcel praised state and local actions to counter the FCC December order rescinding net neutrality rules, including bills, lawsuits and executive orders: “This one’s not over.” Monday, the FCC didn't comment.

Analyst reactions to Verizon personnel changes included that 5G may become a bigger focus under incoming CEO (see the personals section of today's issue) Hans Vestberg. That executive, a relative newcomer hired last year (see the personals section of the April 3, 2017 issue), was previously chief of Ericsson. Vestberg was “a better match for where Verizon was going to go,” outgoing CEO Lowell McAdam told The Wall Street Journal in comments a spokesman told us were accurate. “With 5G in front of us, we are at a huge inflection point. Whoever is at the head of the business should be able to see that through.” The carrier now "has a small window of opportunity to take the lead in 5G," and by next year's second half, "the industry could look very different," Macquarie Capital's Amy Yong wrote to investors Friday. "While its peers have moved toward vertical integration/scale, Verizon has focused on its 5G strategy." The CEO decision is "an extremely surprising move" and "most surprising" because it doesn't include Verizon Wireless Executive Vice President John Stratton, whom "many viewed as the heir apparent," said Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche. She also pointed to the retiring CEO's comments on 5G.