Spectrum

The Federal Communications Commission announced the conclusion of bidding in the first phase of Auction 110, an auction of licenses in the 3.45 to 3.55 GHz band. In the clock phase, bidders won 4,041 of the 4,060 available generic blocks, and gross proceeds in the clock phase reached over $21.8 billion, which places Auction 110 among the highest-grossing auctions in FCC history.

While people have focused on President Biden’s Federal Communications Commission nominations, Biden also nominated Alan Davidson to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and there haven’t been a lot of headlines about that nomination. However, the next head of NTIA will have a broad scope of responsibilities at a critical time in US broadband infrastructure.

T-Mobile announced it now covers 200 million people with Ultra Capacity 5G, the moniker for its 2.5 GHz coverage, which is six weeks ahead of schedule. It’s also farther ahead of its rivals than what was envisioned even a couple weeks ago.

The $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure package cleared by the House on November 5 includes a record $2.75 billion in state grants to help millions of Americans access and use technology—a great start, advocates say, but more is needed.

House Science Committee leaders are asking President Joe Biden’s council of science and tech advisers to write a report on ways to protect and boost spectrum access and quality for science and operational uses.

The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA)'s new “Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin” on “Risk of Potential Adverse Effects on Radio Altimeters” stated airplane communications and safety features could be affected by the Federal Communications Commission's roll-out of 5G, scheduled for December 2021 but now delayed until January 2022.

Spectrum is the resource carriers spend billions to acquire and billions more to deploy, so clearly there is value in using it efficiently. Tech startup GenXComm recently raised a $20 million with the goal of hiring new talent to develop its private wireless business. Investors including Intel Capital, BMWi Ventures and Motive Communications are backing the company as it markets its solutions to carriers, with a particular focus on helping them deploy private networks. “We are able to do backhaul and access in the same frequency”, explained GenXComm co-founder and CTO Hardik Jain.

House Energy and Commerce lawmakers are offering bipartisan grumbling about whether President Biden’s executive branch is properly coordinating with the Federal Communications Commission on how to manage wireless airwaves. Their latest concern: the Federal Aviation Administration issuing warnings about possible disruption to airplane equipment from wireless carriers’ use of 5G-friendly airwaves in the C-band.

With little movement in the top markets and increases of only tens of millions of dollars per round in the rest of the country, the Federal Communications Commission is looking to get bidders in the 3.45-GHz midband spectrum auction off the sidelines and move toward the finish line. By round 85, the auction had raised $21,426,504,290 in gross bids. That is about 50 percent higher than the reserve price the FCC set of $14.775 billion to make sure the auction covers the price of relocating federal users of the 100 MHz of the band the Department of Defense agreed to share.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upped the ante in what has been an ongoing scuffle between communications regulators and the wireless industry with aviation stakeholders – as the agency issued a warning over potential interference to airplane safety systems from upcoming 5G deployments in C-band frequencies.