Wireless Telecommunications

Midco’s chief technology innovation officer Jon Pederson says the operator’s use of fixed wireless access (FWA) technology to serve certain remote locations is actually benefitting its efforts to expand its fiber network. Pederson, who has worked for the regional US broadband provider for more than three decades, explained Midco deploys fixed wireless access service for customers in some of the most remote parts of its footprint. As it runs fiber to new towers for that service, he said it’s also taking the opportunity to push fiber into nearby communities along the way.

• AT&T now shares the Games Experience award with T-Mobile.
• T-Mobile exceeds the 10 Mbps mark in Upload Speed Experience, having the fastest Upload Speed Experience.
• T-Mobile keeps hold of the Voice App Experience award, ahead of Verizon and AT&T which tied.

Remember the bit about the 12 GHz band that 5G proponents were using to advance their argument at the Federal Communications Commission? The one about “no federal encumbrances”? That seems to be rising to the top in the wake of all the recent problems associated with C-band spectrum. Granted, the 12 GHz band has its own set of challenges for the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition, which represents Dish Network, among others.

President Joe Biden donned the jersey of Team Delay by making it clear he had pushed for airlines to get more time to account for certain kinds of legacy aviation equipment. “What I’ve done is pushed as hard as I can to have the 5G folks hold up and abide by what was being requested by the airlines until they could more modernize over the years, so 5G would not interfere with the potential of a landing,” Biden said.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the appointment of a diverse group of leading technology experts to serve as members of the Technological Advisory Council (TAC). The TAC will hold its first meeting on Monday, February 28, 2022, beginning at 10:00 am EDT via video conference and will be available online. The advisory council provides technical expertise to the FCC to identify important areas of innovation and develop informed technology policies.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued new approvals that allow an estimated 62 percent of the US commercial fleet to perform low-visibility landings at airports where wireless companies deployed 5G C-band. The new safety buffer announced January 18 around airports in the 5G deployment further expanded the number of airports available to planes with previously cleared altimeters to perform low-visibility landings. The FAA early January 19 cleared another three altimeters. Even with these approvals, flights at some airports may still be affected.

Ookla's Speedtest released its mobile and fixed broadband speed rankings in the United States for December 2021. Speedtest Intelligence revealed T-Mobile was the fastest mobile operator in the United States during Q4 2021 with a median download speed of 90.65 Mbps on modern chipsets. AT&T was second and Verizon third. This represents a strong increase in download speed for T-Mobile from 62.35 Mbps in Q3 2021.

The City of Amarillo (TX) is working with Airspan to set up a $4 million fixed wireless access (FWA) network to help connect school kids to the internet. The 4G FWA network, which has achieved symmetrical speeds of 100 Mbps, is being deployed to the homes of children who do not have internet access. And of course, this will benefit others who live in those households as well. Based on the urgency of serving students, the goal is to have 50 square miles covered by the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

Several international airlines canceled some US-bound flights after American wireless operators and aviation officials were unable to fully resolve a months-long standoff over the launch of new 5G signals. AT&T and Verizon agreed to temporarily water down expansion plans for 5G wireless service to address air-safety regulators’ concerns about the network signals’ effect on aircraft instruments.

The chief executives of major passenger and cargo airlines said there could be significant flight disruptions when new 5G service goes live in the US, unless implementation of the wireless service within 2 miles of major airport runways is delayed. The outlook had worsened for flight disruptions from the planned rollout of new high-speed wireless services, the airline executives said in a letter to US officials.