Wireless Telecommunications

The Federal Communications Commission proposed next steps to prepare the upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands for auction. In particular, auctioning the 39 GHz and upper 37 GHz bands together presents a critical opportunity for 5G deployment as it represents the largest amount of contiguous spectrum available in the millimeter-wave bands.

Sprint and T-Mobile filed their S-4 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. An S-4 is a filing that details a business combination or exchange offer and includes details such as share distribution, amounts, terms and other information relating to the transaction. Included in the S-4 from Sprint and T-Mobile is a lengthy and detailed timeline about how the companies finally reached their April merger agreement.

Poring through hundreds of pages of documents submitted to the government by T-Mobile and Sprint and transcripts of testimony in front of Congress makes it clear that going from four competitors to three — AT&T, Verizon and a combined T-Mobile-Sprint — wouldn’t pose the problems that so many fear.

Every textbook would say that fewer competitors results in high prices. But if the Sprint-T-Mobile deal was given the green light, it would almost empirically create, at least in the short term, more competition for AT&T and Verizon, not less.

T-Mobile and Nokia have agreed to a $3.5 billion deal to accelerate deployment of a nationwide 5G network. Under terms of today’s announcement, T-Mobile gains access to Nokia’s complete end-to-end 5G technology, software and services portfolio. Additionally, Nokia will help construct T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network with 600 MHz and 28 GHz millimeter wave 5G capabilities, which are compliant with the new 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standards.

The mobile wireless broadband marketplace is either wildly competitive or definitely not so, depending on whom you ask.

Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-SD) is eying ways to combine his STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act, S.

The Senate Commerce Committee took a deep dive into various government and industry efforts to make more spectrum available for 5G. Helping focus the hearing were two bills currently working their way through Congress, the SPECTRUM NOW and AIRWAVES Act. "Identifying spectrum resources not just for the next three years, but for the next 10 years and beyond is essential if we are to retain American leadership," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD). Craig Cowden, SVP of wireless technology for Charter, put in a plug for its Wi-Fi mobile broadband play.

Computer giant Microsoft has teamed up with RTO Wireless to provide broadband access to more than a quarter million people in rural New York state and Maine. It is the latest project in the company's Airband Initiative to connect rural areas to broadband partnerships with Internet service providers, and energy companies and others. The goal is to close the rural digital divide by July 4, 2022, including by making use of unlicensed spectrum in the so-called TV white spaces between TV channels.

Wave Wireless, a fixed wireless broadband provider from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s hometown of Parsons (KS), is among the 182 companies pushing back on the FCC’s approach to a valuable swath of mid-band airwaves. Wave Wireless — which Chairman Pai said serves his parents in a 2017 tweet — and its fellow companies, mostly small rural providers, want the FCC to preserve smaller geographic license sizes in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band.

[Speech] I want to talk about the secret to smart policies about smart cities.  I can summarize my idea in one word.  Learning.