Spectrum

Department of Justice Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim is facing congressional scrutiny over his recently revealed texts with DISH Chairman Charlie Ergen, according to a set of questions for the record from House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI). I

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he thought 5G wireless technology could indeed help close the rural digital divide but conceded there were challenges to building out the next-generation technology to wherever it needed to go. In terms of smartphones, Chairman Pai said, 5G might be more a "big city use case," but he saw opportunities beyond urban with fixed wireless, which was why he was bullish on the trial window for the spectrum in the 2.5-gigahertz band. He also pointed to precision agriculture and telemedicine.

5G may seem like an unlikely battleground between China and the West. Yet the transition to 5G may mark the point, after decades of Chinese integration into a globalized economy, when Beijing’s interests diverge irreconcilably from those of the United States, the European Union, and their democratic peers. Because of a failure of imagination, Western powers risk capitulating in what has become a critical geopolitical arena.

Verizon Wireless is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to use a portion of the 37.6-40 GHz band in part of northwest Arkansas for testing purposes as it develops different healthcare-related use cases and devices with an unnamed corporate partner. The application seeks a testing schedule of 12 months. Ericsson is noted as supplying three demonstration units and “multiple mobile manufacturers” for supplying 20 demo units.

Microsoft is pushing the Federal Communications Commission to respond to its May 2019 petition for rulemaking on expanding access to the so-called white spaces between TV channels. The company wants the FCC to allow more sharing in the broadcast band for unlicensed wireless. In meetings with FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr, Microsoft and its representatives came armed with a report outlining how wireless internet providers have been able to boost their throughput tenfold using TV white spaces.

Months after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai reiterated his support for plans to allocate more than 1,200 megahertz of unlicensed spectrum on the 6GHz band for Wi-Fi usage, the Wi-Fi industry is moving to hit the ground running with the additional real estate in 2020.

Tope broadband stories from 2019:

1. Policymakers wake up to the importance of universal broadband.
2. Full court press put on broadband mapping problems. 
3. Carriers are ultra-competitive over 5G. 
4. Edge computing is hot and should get hotter.
5. Policymakers also wake up to the need for more spectrum. 
6. Windstream files for bankruptcy and Frontier could follow.
7. Fixed wireless gains momentum.
8. Video shakeup continues – with little agreement on where it’s going.

In a Dec 20 court filing,  the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission argued that T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint is in the best interest of the US, and any nationwide injunction holding up the merger would block "substantial, long-term, and procompetitive benefits for American consumers." The argument, in large part, boils down to: trust us, we're the experts. "Both the Antitrust Division and the FCC have significant experience and expertise in analyzing these types of transactions and do so from a nationwide perspective," the agencies write.