Spectrum

The Federal Communications Commission will hold an Open Meeting on the subjects listed below on Wednesday, March 17, 2021:

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology certify Key Bridge Wireless LLC as a Spectrum Access System (SAS) Administrator in the 3.55-3.7 GHz band (3.5 GHz band).

Verizon is rolling out an enhancement to 4G that absolutely blows away its own "nationwide" 5G, and that shows good signs for the new C-band 5G coming in 2022. Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS), a set of airwaves close to the C-band, has quietly started rolling out nationwide. I got a tip on two locations near me, so I went to check it out. CBRS appeared on sites configured for all of Verizon's latest technologies: 4G, its "nationwide" Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) 5G, and its super-speedy ultra wideband (UWB) 5G.

Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the Broadband Reserve Fund Act. This legislation would require the net proceeds from the C-Band spectrum auction to be deposited into a reserve fund at the Department of Treasury to be used to expand broadband access and digital opportunity, modernize the nation’s communications infrastructure, and meet other connectivity priorities.

A high-stakes auction of government-owned airwaves to mobile broadband providers is set to drop a record windfall exceeding $80 billion into the US Treasury. Two additional auctions of wireless frequency bands, called spectrum, are on tap for 2021 and slated to follow the same course. The nation has become painfully aware of the digital divides that are widening inequality, slowing productivity, and impeding innovation.

SpaceX and Dish Network are fighting at the Federal Communications Commission over Dish's attempt to block a key designation that SpaceX's Starlink division needs in order to get FCC broadband funding. Dish's "baseless attempt" to block funding "would serve only to delay what matters most—connecting unserved Americans," said SpaceX in a filing.

While you probably never thought you needed to understand the intricacies of how cellular networks operated by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon work, some big news that affects those operations will have real-world impacts on the services that they offer and that we rely on. In every country around the world except the US, 5G networks have been built around mid-band spectrum because it offers the right combination of coverage area and width of data lanes over which our TV shows can be streamed, Instagram posts uploaded, worldwide web browsed, etc.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the winning bidders and the final bid totals in Auction 107—commonly referred to as the C-band auction. Auction 107 net winning bids totaled $81,114,481,921 and gross winning bids totaled $81,168,677,645. Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses. Verizon was the big winner -- nearly $45.5 billion spent to gain 3,511 licenses. AT&T was a distant second: nearly $23.5 billion spent on 1,621 licenses. T-Mobile spent $9.3 billion on 142 licenses. Down payments on the spectrum licenses are due March 10.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau granted an additional 21 spectrum licenses in the 2.5 GHz band to help connect rural Tribal communities across the country. To date, the agency has granted 205 licenses in the 2.5 GHz band to help address rural Tribal connectivity needs. These licenses provide for exclusive use of up to 117.5 megahertz of 2.5 GHz band spectrum that Tribes can use to connect their rural communities to wireless broadband and other advanced services.

A flurry of orders, rulemakings, inquiries, and adjudications aimed at advancing the United States’ economic recovery and preparing for a post-COVID world.: