Frontier, Consolidated and Windstream plead for flexible rural wireless spectrum rules

Frontier, Consolidated and Windstream told the Federal Communications Commission that to leverage wireless spectrum bands like 3.5 GHz to address rural broadband gaps, the current license size should be changed. In a recent joint FCC filing, the three service providers, which are all recipients of the regulator’s CAF II program, say that the larger license sizes—specifically partial economic areas (PEAs)—are too big and too expensive. As a result, the trio added that PEAs would preclude “potential participation from carriers considering deploying fixed wireless in very rural areas.”