CTIA President Meredith Baker wants a new national plan on spectrum for wireless broadband, given that the U.S. is already half way through the administration’s 2010 plan calling for 500 MHz of new spectrum in 10 years, she said at an Accenture broadband conference. “I encourage you to look back at the numbers,” Baker said in her prepared remarks. “They seemed like aggressive estimates. Turns out those estimates simply captured the skyrocketing growth in mobile usage.” Five years ago, the FCC forecast 41 petabytes of monthly data use in the U.S., but the actual amount was 10 percent higher, she said. “By 2012 and 2013, traffic was 25 percent higher than the FCC’s projected growth rates,” Baker said. Wireless industry growth depends on licensed spectrum, Baker said. “When and how we introduce 5G in the United States depends, in part, upon whether we keep our spectrum policy as forward-looking as our industry,” she said. “The question we face is will the U.S. continue to embrace licensed spectrum, the approach that has made us the global leader in 4G.” Baker also said too much emphasis now is on spectrum sharing. Shared spectrum is a “complement” not a “replacement” for licensed spectrum, she said. “Clearing spectrum will never look easy, particularly years before an auction,” she said. “To be fair, it will never be easy. But it can be done and needs to be done if we are to remain the global leader in mobility.”

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and 4G Americas signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at “alignment of the organizations' common technological and policy efforts in the field of mobile broadband communication,” they said Tuesday in a news release. The MOU lays out the terms for “knowledge-sharing and exploring opportunities” so they can work together on topics important to the wireless industry, the groups said. Areas of common interest include the move to 5G, emergency alerting, text to 911, preventing mobile device theft and “network functions virtualization/software-defined networking,” the two said. "Our alignment with 4G Americas will increase the momentum to advance the network toward its 5G future, help identify smartphones reported stolen, accelerate the delivery of critical emergency communications and more,” said ATIS President Susan Miller. "As the mobile broadband industry progresses at a rapid pace toward 5G … it is becoming increasingly important to cooperate with other major associations regarding critical common areas of interest to ensure there is no technical fragmentation,” said Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas.

The FCC should draw the line against giving competitive carriers any more incentives to buy spectrum in the TV incentive auction, said Kathleen Grillo, Verizon senior vice president-federal regulatory and legal affairs, Monday in a blog post. “If ever there was an example to confirm the old adage about taking a mile after gaining an inch, we’re seeing it in the incentive auction,” Grillo wrote. “T-Mobile, Sprint and DISH are large, spectrum-rich companies that have already received a spectrum set-aside from the FCC in the incentive auction. Now they are agitating for an even bigger one. Policymakers should see this spectrum grab for what it is: a case of greed masquerading as need.” The three want the FCC to set aside as many as three 10 megahertz licenses in every market for competitive carriers, Grillo said. The three “may play the sympathy card at the FCC, but they are multibillion dollar corporations capable of bringing serious money to the auction table and bidding for spectrum on the same terms as everyone else,” she said. Competitors should have a fair shot at buying incentive auction spectrum and consumers deserve more competition, responded Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association. “Verizon fails to recognize the fundamental fact that it and AT&T together control 73 percent of all low-band spectrum, spectrum that is uniquely suited for wireless coverage in rural areas and in-building penetration alike,” he said. “To encourage competition in the marketplace, spur innovation and benefit consumers, the commission must work to prevent additional spectrum aggregation.” With the success of the AWS-3 auction, which raised enough to pay off FirstNet's start-up costs, “it is abundantly clear that carriers are hungry for additional spectrum,” he said. “The FCC must ensure that all carriers have the opportunity to walk away with a piece of the spectrum pie.” Andy Levin, T-Mobile US senior vice president-government affairs, said the FCC should consider the source of the complaint. "Those who live in spectrum warehouses shouldn’t throw stones," Levin said. "Verizon sat on the [700 MHz] A-block spectrum we bought from them for six whole years. When T-Mobile bought it, we immediately began building it out. We don’t warehouse spectrum, the big guys do. Verizon can try to make this about T-Mobile, but the incentive auction is really about the future of wireless competition, and dozens of consumer advocates and smaller carriers agree."

The FCC should codify that its rules allow transmission of GPS information over general mobile radio service (GMRS) frequencies, Garmin said in a filing posted Friday in docket 10-119, reporting on a meeting between the company and FCC officials. Under a waiver, Garmin has sold more than 600,000 GPS-enabled devices that operate on GMRS frequencies “and no interference has been reported,” Garmin said. It said family radio service (FRS) devices are popular with public safety personnel and the public. “The record is devoid of any evidence that indicates FRS/GMRS combination radios cause interference to GMRS or other services,” Garmin said. “If the Commission has eligibility concerns related to alien or other ownership issues involving particular services, the FCC should address that problem by service-specific rules, rather than prohibiting FRS/GMRS combination radios.”

While a filing by AT&T and small carriers last week on FCC designated entity rules made some constructive suggestions (see 1505110048), the FCC still should use the program to encourage new market entrants to bid for spectrum, Public Knowledge said in a filing posted Monday in docket 12-268. “For example, if Apple wanted to offer wireless service over exclusive licensed spectrum with its new ‘Apple Watch,’ or Intel wanted to offer a unique private network for IoT devices, it would need to rely entirely on the networks and spectrum held by others,” PK said. Buying spectrum to launch a new network would cost billions of dollars, the group said. “While giant companies might be able to afford such expenditures, it is not rational to expect them to do so -- or even plan to do so in the current environment.” PK said it makes sense to encourage smaller carriers to also buy spectrum. “These providers need an expanded bidding credit so that they may acquire the necessary spectrum to continue to serve their customer base, and to hopefully grow regionally,” PK said.

The AWS-3 auction is over but “the heavy lifting” is just getting started as industry and the government work to clear the spectrum bought in the auction, said Paige Atkins, NTIA associate administrator for spectrum management, at the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee meeting (see 1505120040) Tuesday. Relocation could take up to 10 years, she said: “We expect significant sharing to occur in the interim and a lot of coordination and collaboration to occur during that time.” Atkins said the Competitive Carriers Association and CTIA will host an AWS-3 government and information exchange June 4, which will be open to winning bidders in the auction. “This is to begin the informal dialogue around expectations, processes and tools that will facilitate the transition,” she said, noting it will be similar to coordination after the 2008 AWS-1 auction. NTIA and the Institute of Telecommunications Sciences (ITS) are expanding their spectrum monitoring pilot in the 3.5 GHz band, spectrum set aside for shared use, Atkins said. They're working with federal agencies to host four additional sensors and potentially expand coverage beyond 3.5 GHz, she said. ITS, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is also developing a measured spectrum occupancy database, she said. “That’s intended to make the sensor data available on a near real-time basis to support policy planning, engineering, and eventually, potentially, dynamic sharing.” Spectrum for international mobile telecom (IMT) is the top priority of the U.S. at the World Radiocommunications Conference later this year, Atkins said. “Go figure,” she said. “The challenge for mobile broadband services is the same internationally as nationally,” she said: “The most suitable bands are already being used by other services for things like broadcasting” and satellite links. The U.S. focus is on sharing, she said. The U.S. supports sharing in the 3.5 GHz band, the 600 MHz spectrum being offered in the TV incentive auction and the L band, at 1424-1518 MHz, which the U.S. supports but doesn't plan to implement here, she said. The second priority is spectrum for beyond-line-of sight command and control link for unmanned aircraft systems. A likely topic of the WRC in 2019 is a look at the use of bands above 6 GHz, she said.

A group of startup companies urged the FCC to modify rules for the TV incentive auction by increasing the amount of reserve spectrum to be sold to 40 MHz. Carriers with more than 45 MHz of low-band spectrum in a market will be restricted to buying only unreserved spectrum under rules approved last year (see 1405160030). “We are entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, and innovators,” the Wednesday letter said. “Through the incentive auction, we have a rare opportunity to increase innovation and investment in U.S. mobile broadband by allowing multiple new competitive carriers to access the spectrum they need to compete with the dominant incumbents.” Startups signing the letter were 1226 Digital, 1991 Management Co., Bassline, Bento for Business, Biggerpan, Bizzy, Castr, Consumerproof, Convo, Darwin Reactive, Dialect, Electric Imp, Fligoo, Fytns, Hattery Labs, InMarkit, Keen IO, Metapattern, Neighborland, Olio Devices, Pick1, Plickers, Poacht, ReaMetrix, Skuchain, SportsFeed, Tab, Tahoe Mountain Lab and Zenput.

Big companies that have invested in W-Fi should welcome LTE-unlicensed, not fight it, said Richard Bennett, a developer of the Wi-Fi media access control (MAC) protocol, in a Tuesday blog post. Because LTE-U is a variation of the MAC protocol used by mobile phones, “it can operate over large distances -- miles -- without substantial loss of efficiency, and it can also operate more efficiently over short distances at high data rates,” Bennett wrote. “The LTE-U base station acts as coordinator to ensure that spectrum is shared fairly and quickly without unnecessary overhead.” Big companies that have invested heavily in Wi-Fi complain about possible interference between Wi-Fi and LTE-U, but “they usually don’t emphasize the more pertinent issue: performance,” he said. “Even when LTE-U and Wi-Fi are operating on different channels and therefore not interfering with each other, LTE-U will outperform Wi-Fi. This makes LTE-U a more attractive technical offering.” Bennett is an American Enterprise Institute fellow.

The FCC should ignore requests from some companies and groups to revise the rules reserving some spectrum for smaller carriers in the TV incentive auction, Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter and others from the group told FCC officials in recent meetings. “In these meetings, Mobile Future urged the Commission to reject calls by certain parties for reconsideration of the spectrum set aside in the upcoming incentive auction,” said an ex parte filing by the group. “There is no need to revisit these issues and put the success of the auction potentially at risk or cause unnecessary delay.” The filing was posted by the FCC Monday in docket 12-268.

Cox Communications and Cablevision’s Optimum switched spots on Netflix’s U.S. ISP speed index, which respectively ranked them as the No. 2 and No. 3 ISPs on the April index, released Monday. Cox’s average speed rose to 3.49 Mbps in April, up from 3.43 Mbps in March and 2.9 Mbps a year ago. Cablevision’s Optimum also saw its average speed rise to 3.48 Mbps from 3.46 Mbps in March and 3 Mbps a year ago. Verizon FiOS retained the No. 1 spot on the April index with an average speed of 3.55 Mbps, while Bright House remained in fourth place with an average of 3.46 Mbps. AT&T’s DSL service and CenturyLink both rose two spots on the April index to Nos. 11 and 12, while Windstream dropped three spots to No. 14. Bell Canada remained the top ISP on Netflix’s Canada ISP index with an average speed of 3.64 Mbps. Netflix said it now ranks the speeds of ISPs in 29 nations, having added measurements for Australia and New Zealand in April.