FCC Chairman Ajit Pai hopes dig once to lay fiber conduits "becomes the law of the land," suggesting it's critical to increasing backhaul capacity to support 5G wireless. He said low-earth-orbit satellite constellations promise to expand rural broadband and lower latency. "Satellite innovation is really coming along well," he told a Geeks Without Frontiers conference Tuesday. The difficult broadband business case in high-cost areas is worsened by unnecessary rules, he said, vowing to continue deregulatory remedies: "We've made a lot of progress. There's still a ways to go." He said the Connect America Fund Phase II reverse auction saved $3.5 billion, allocating $1.5 billion in broadband subsidies over 10 years for connecting over 700,000 locations estimated to need $5 billion. He plugged FCC "technological neutrality" letting wireless providers, electric utilities and Viasat be among new CAF recipients competing to serve rural customers. Pai highlighted other efforts to push broadband, including plans to auction 5 GHz of commercial spectrum over the next 18 months, and opening the 6 GHz band to Wi-Fi use. The FCC is looking at unlicensed opportunities from low-band spectrum to the 95 GHz band, he said. Pai said there are "exciting times to come" in broadband-enabled "vertical" applications like teleheath, and IoT and artificial intelligence have potential upsides for healthcare.

Whether the 3.5 GHz band paradigm becomes the new norm or a specialty tool for particular occasions was debated by FCC Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel at a WiFiForward coalition event Thursday. "It's almost radical," eschewing the binary approach of licensed vs. unlicensed spectrum and going instead with the hierarchy of incumbents, secondary licenses and opportunistic use, Rosenworcel said. She hopes that approach will be used in other bands globally.

The FCC would give rural telcos monthly model-based USF support of $200 per location if they adopt new commitments to build out 25/3 Mbps broadband, under a draft order issued Wednesday. It would also seek to firm up support for rate-of-return (RoR) carriers still on legacy support in exchange for increased 25/3 Mbps deployment. The tentative agenda issued for the Dec. 12 commissioners' meeting also includes draft items on a new high-band 5G spectrum auction, a communications market report, a quadrennial review, media modernization, a robocall-related reassigned number database (here) and wireless messaging classification (here), as announced Tuesday by Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1811200048).

The FCC plans to launch a 2018 quadrennial review, classify wireless messaging as an information service, pave the way for a new high-band 5G auction, and provide rural telcos with new USF support in exchange for more deployment of 25/3 Mbps broadband, at the Dec. 12 commissioners' meeting. It's targeting votes on items to create a reassigned phone number database to help against unwanted robocalling, further "modernize" broadcast rules and issue a communications market report. The wireless messaging (including short message service or SMS) and auction items weren't among those previously expected (see 1811190047), with the first item now getting criticism.

That the fight over license size in the 3.5 GHz band is over didn't stop a skirmish at an FCBA CLE that ran through Monday evening. Verizon Assistant Vice President-Federal Regulatory Patrick Welsh said it's disingenuous for General Electric and other massive companies to imply they lack resources to compete with national wireless carriers in a 3.5 GHz auction.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai touted his "Fast Plan" to spur 5G. "We're aiming to free up more spectrum over the next 15 months than is currently held" by every mobile provider combined, he noted Friday in a Federalist Society speech largely tracking written remarks. He said low earth orbit satellite constellations, like those approved Thursday (see 1811150028), could be a "game changer" for broadband-hungry areas.

The numbers show broadcasters aren’t going to be able to complete the repacking on the FCC’s 39-month timeline without adjustment, said tower industry and broadcast industry officials in interviews. The rate at which stations are completing repacking moves, number of tower crews available to move them, and the advancing phase schedule add up to many broadcasters in later phases not completing their repacking on time, they said.

The FCC has rarely held multiple spectrum auctions at once, but it’s not clear what industry wants the agency to do, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale said at an FCBA lunch Wednesday. Meanwhile, the FCC started its first millimeter-wave auction, with bids coming in at just under $41.7 million after two rounds. It reported provisionally winning bids on 2,065 of the 3,072 28 GHz licenses for sale in the auction. The FCC plans three rounds Thursday, starting at 10 a.m.

Wireless Communications Association representatives met an aide to FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and with Wireless Bureau staff to urge the FCC to adopt the group's proposed approach on 2.5 GHz educational broadband service spectrum. WCA wants the FCC to “rationalize” existing EBS geographic service areas to the country boundary, open eligibility in the band to commercial licensees and then auction remaining EBS white spaces. “Unlike alternative proposals, this approach is most likely to result in auctioning of the EBS white space without the years of delay that otherwise would be required to identify the specific spectrum available at auction,” the group said. WCA opposes an incentive auction, here and here, posted in docket 18-120 Thursday. Voqal and the North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation also held a series of meetings on EBS. They “explained how the Commission can best achieve its goal of intensive use of EBS spectrum while promoting both rural deployment and educational use by modernizing, but retaining, its educational eligibility and usage rules, and automatically rationalizing existing license areas along county lines for all licensees.” They met with aides to the commissioners, except O'Rielly, and Wireless Bureau staff.

Opening the 6 GHz band for unlicensed is seen by advocates as important to move many applications to the next level. There's pressure on the FCC to address the band. Commissioners approved an NPRM at their Oct. 23 meeting (see 1810230038).