LAS VEGAS -- A key telecom challenge is to ensure regional and smaller providers can compete in a market dominated by large national players, Windstream CEO Tony Thomas said Wednesday. He said his company is the No. 5 fiber provider, with half a million locations on-net. "We can't be a national provider without some sort of basic, functioning wholesale market," he said, noting the need to serve business customers with scattered locations. He backed spectrum policies that do more to allow smaller bidders to compete with the big four national wireless carriers and voiced concern about large tech companies gobbling up upstarts.

Sprint emphasized the importance of 2.5 GHz spectrum to 5G deployment in meeting with FCC Wireless Bureau officials. Sprint repeated arguments (see 1810160012) against an incentive auction in the band. “Its leased 2.5 GHz spectrum" is critical and "its longstanding mutually beneficial partnership with the [educational broadband service] community" has "enhanced Sprint’s current LTE deployment and will enable its 5G mobile deployment in nine major markets in the first half of 2019,” it said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-120.

The FCC Wireless Bureau said Wednesday 58 of the 60 applications to bid in the upcoming 24 GHz auction have been deemed complete. S&T Communications and Spectrum Financial Partners were incomplete, said an order in docket 18-85. The auction starts after the 28 GHz auction ends.

Most commenters welcome moves to open the 3.4-4.2 GHz C-band for 5G, as some question the FCC’s proposed market-based approach to making licenses available. Questions remain how to create a smooth glide path there for satellite operators. Tuesday, some said the FCC appears to want to move quickly on the band, but final rules are unlikely until late 2019.

Though it's unclear what will come out of the comprehensive national spectrum strategy ordered by President Donald Trump last week (see 1810250018), industry officials said government is right to do everything it can, given the escalating demands for spectrum amid coming 5G. Some are skeptical.

AT&T officials met with FCC staff on the proposed design for a 39 GHz auction. Among those at the meeting was Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale. "Parties discussed the Commission’s proposed pre-auction voucher exchange, including issues specific to incumbents who exchange vouchers with an intent to participate in the auction and incumbents who exchange vouchers with an intent to retain their existing spectrum holdings without participation in the clock phase,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 14-177.

T-Mobile's broadside at Dish Network's IoT plans is likely at least partially payback for Dish's opposition to T-Mobile buying Sprint, experts told us. The timing of the wireless company's letter to FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Don Stockdale (see 1810260047) -- a month after Dish joined public interest and consumer groups and representatives of mostly rural carriers in opposition (see 1808280038) -- reads as "sour grapes retribution," said Gigi Sohn, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy fellow. Dish fought back.

NTCH isn't an AWS-4 band licensee or operating in adjacent spectrum that could face interference from Dish Network using the lower AWS-4 band for downlinks rather than uplinks, so it doesn't have standing to challenge the FCC waiving some technical rules that applied to Dish's AWS-4 licenses, the agency said Wednesday in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit motion to dismiss (in Pacer, docket 18-1242). NTCH sued after the agency in August upheld a Wireless Bureau waiver request it was appealing (see 1808160065). NTCH claims that waiver thwarted its plans to participate in the H-block option, but it had decided not to take part in the auction before the bureau granted the waiver request. D.C. Circuit precedent is that a general complaint about the government doesn't qualify for Article III standing, the FCC said. NTCH counsel Don Evans of Fletcher Heald emailed that the motion was expected since the FCC attacked its mandamus petition previously on standing grounds. He said the FCC acknowledged that NTCH has standing to challenge H-Block auction procedures and that the waiver and the extension of time for Dish to construct AWS-4 facilities were explicit quid pro quos for Dish's payment of $1.5 billion in the H-Block auction. That deal gave Dish enormous advantages not enjoyed by any other auction participant and makes the waiver/extension integral to the H-Block auction process and challengeable by a thwarted bidder, he said. The court granted a Dish motion (in Pacer) to intervene Monday.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and others at a 5G Americas technology forum Thursday welcomed President Donald Trump directing development of a comprehensive national spectrum policy (see 1810250018). Trump also rescinded two Obama administration spectrum policy memos. The Trump memo requires all government agencies report to the Commerce Department on their current and anticipated spectrum requirements. Reports will be due at the White House in 180 days, with a strategy due 90 days later.

The Wireless ISP Association is “disappointed” with the FCC’s 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service rules (see 1810230037), said a Wednesday news release. “We commend the FCC for rejecting the idea of auctioning CBRS licenses at the very large Partial Economic Area (PEA) level,” said WISPA President Claude Aiken. “However, the new combination of county-sized licenses, package bidding, long license terms, and renewal expectancy will shut out a significant portion of our members from using licensed CBRS spectrum to bring affordable, reliable broadband services to under-served rural areas.”