The bulk challenge process for the FCC's broadband data collection begins Sept. 12, said a Wireline Bureau, Office of Economics and Analytics, and Broadband Data Taskforce public notice Friday in docket 19-195. States, local governments, tribal governments and providers will be able to file challenges to data in the broadband serviceable location fabric. FCC staff will host a webinar on the challenge process Sept. 7 at 2 p.m. EDT. The FCC is "ready to get to work and start developing new and improved broadband maps," after Thursday's deadline for providers to submit data on broadband service availability, blogged Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. "We are targeting November 2022 for release of the first draft of the map," Rosenworcel wrote, and another challenge process will open for the public once the maps are released.

T-Mobile, as expected, dominated the 2.5 GHz auction (see 2208300021), winning 7,156 licenses for $304.3 million, covering 2,724 counties, the FCC announced Thursday. But T-Mobile wasn’t the only bidder -- the FCC said 63 bidders won a total of 7,872 licenses. The auction had gross proceeds of $427.8 million. Among other large carriers, Cellular South bid $11.9 million for 38 licenses. Verizon won nine licenses for $1.5 million. AT&T and Dish Network didn’t get any licenses. AT&T had made an upfront payment of only $1,000, versus $20 million by Verizon and $25,000 by Dish. PTI Pacifica was the second-highest bidder, at $17.7 million. TeleGuam Holdings bid $16.6 million for the mid-band spectrum. By number of licenses won, the No. 2 bidder was North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation, with 107, followed by Evergy Kansas Central with 54. “This really was T-Mobile’s auction,” Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner told us: “Everyone else either got the scraps that T-Mobile didn’t want or watched how it unfolded.” Down payments by winning bidders are due Sept. 16, final payments Sept. 30, the agency said. The FCC’s auction authority expires Sept. 30, absent action by Congress. “With most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band located in rural areas, this auction provides vital spectrum resources to support wireless services in rural communities,” the FCC said.

AST SpaceMobile launched one satellite in 2019, contrary to an analyst note indicating otherwise (see 2208260038), the company said.

NAB responded to New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge comments in a TV white spaces (TVWS) proceeding. The groups had blasted NAB in comments on how often narrowband devices should have to check a white spaces database. NAB’s objections “stem not from any genuine technical concern but solely from the desire to ‘get Big Tech’ and undermine the use of unlicensed spectrum,” OTI and PK said (see 2208020055). “A careful examination of those comments … demonstrates they are replete with questionable claims, exaggerations, and misleading conflations of projects,” NAB said Wednesday in docket 20-36: “The comments repeatedly conflate, knowingly or not, larger broadband initiatives with TVWS technology and thus seek to ascribe to TVWS the successes associated with other technologies.” NAB cited in particular references to Microsoft’s Airband initiative: “Microsoft’s promise to expand broadband service to three million Americans cannot possibly have anything to do with the meager 213 TVWS devices operating today.” NAB "is making every effort it can to reclaim valuable TV White space spectrum,” emailed PK Policy Counsel Kathleen Burke: “This play isn't about the alleged failure of TVWS services, but rather about the potential profits broadcasters might get by subleasing the spectrum they received for free to non-broadcast commercial uses.” The “supposed innovative uses of ATSC 3.0 are almost entirely ancillary commercial opportunities such as navigation and timing services; datacasts to smart Intenet-of-Things devices and smart vehicles; and interactive sports betting for live event broadcasts” and “have nothing to do with the public interest benefits of broadcast television that prompted the FCC to grant free licenses to broadcasters in the first place,” she said. “In contrast, TV white space services actually connect underserved populations to the Internet. Since ATSC 3.0 requires an internet connection to provide the uplink for its interactive innovations, TV white space services could help ensure that all Americans not just, those already connected to the Internet, can benefit from NextGen Broadcasting.” TVWS “offers a valuable option to rural and remote communities for broadband and, increasingly, to farmers, ranchers and others for narrowband sensors that they can access freely,” responded Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “For many years there have been few if any complaints of harmful interference to TV viewers,” he said: “Despite this, at every step, NAB has sought to limit or eliminate public access to this unused spectrum. It is plain to everyone who pays attention that broadcasters are determined to control and monetize not only the free TV spectrum they use, but also the large portion of the TV band they don’t use.”

Demand for in-building networks was increasing before the start of COVID-19, and that trend continues, Volker Jungnickel, Technical University of Berlin engineering professor, said during an IEEE Future Networks webinar Wednesday. Jungnickel highlighted the promise of new technologies like distributed multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and light fidelity (Li-Fi). The IoT will mostly use in-building networks, he said. There will likely be a “gap” between how 5G turns out and expectations, and “in-building networks can help close that gap,” he said. Wi-Fi connections can be as fast as 10 Gbps with Wi-Fi 6, but access points “are shared among multiple users,” he said: “There can be interference from other access points if it’s not very well coordinated. … All these wireless problems are typically managed through the listen-before-talk protocols and that is not very efficient.” With 5G “the issue is the limited coverage,” he said. 802.11, part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network technical standards, offers a network with “low complexity and low costs” and “increasingly introduces similar features” as those offered on carrier networks, Jungnickel said. Some wireless LANs are being built using a technology known as distributed MIMO, he said. “This architecture is known for provision of seamless mobility; it can do advanced interference control,” he said. “It can provide very reliable links because of the redundancy. It can transmit from multiple sites. The latency is low.” The technology is “really promising,” he said. Jungnickel also sees promise in new Li-Fi networks, which transmit data via LED or infrared light. Unlike Wi-Fi, which uses RF, Li-Fi technology needs only a light source with a chip to transmit an internet signal via light waves. “It provides much higher area capacity in small hot spots,” 100 Mbps per square meter “and easily more,” he said: “Light is quite a clean channel, so you can … guarantee the delivery of data at very low latency. It’s robust against jamming because it doesn’t interfere with radio, and it also provides enhanced privacy.”

Corning, with AT&T support, plans to open a fiber plant outside Phoenix in 2024, said the glass maker Tuesday. Corning said it will nearly double its cable capacity. It said the Arizona location will let it more easily serve demand in the western U.S. and Canada. Corning's fiber and cable "demand signals" continue to be "quite robust," said CEO Wendell Weeks on a Q2 earnings call July 26, "and if we could make more fiber and cable, we could sell more fiber and cable."

The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction ended Monday, after 73 rounds, hitting net proceeds of $427.8 million. The FCC found winning bidders for 7,872 of the 8,017 licenses offered. The FCC holds the remaining 145 licenses. “After some extended bidding in Guam today, Auction 108 finally came to an end,” emailed Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer. “While the end of this auction should not be a surprise for those following activity on Friday, it certainly ended faster than I expected just a week ago.” With no assignment phase, Javid predicted the FCC will issue a closing public notice in about a week, with details on where each bidder won licenses. T-Mobile was expected to be the dominant bidder as it fills in gaps in the 2.5 GHz coverage it’s using to offer 5G (see 2207290045). AT&T, Verizon and Dish Network qualified to bid but weren’t expected to make a play for many licenses. New Street significantly downgraded projections for the auction as it unfolded, from $3.4 billion, to less than $452 million in its latest projection. New Street’s Phillip Burnett told investors Sunday Guam Telephone Authority was likely the company making a push for the license there. The authority owns citizens broadband radio service and high-band licenses “but lacks a powerful mid-band license” since “no C-Band or 3.45GHz licenses were offered for Guam,” he said. “We still assume T-Mobile won essentially all the licenses,” Burnett said in a Monday note. The auction translated to just 2 cents/MHz POP, 8 cents excluding the areas where T-Mobile is already operating, he said: “This will make it the cheapest of the 5G upper mid-band auctions at the FCC to date, both in terms of unit and aggregate prices. However, given how odd these licenses were, we wouldn't expect to see the auction used as a marker for mid-band values going forward.”

The FCC needs to take a big swing at receiver standards if it hopes to make any progress, consultant Preston Padden said in a filing posted Wednesday at the FCC. Half measures won’t work, he said. “Our system of spectrum licensing cannot work if entities are licensed for a particular set of frequencies and then the associated industry floods the market with receivers that ‘squat’ over, and preclude the use by others of, a much broader set of frequencies,” Padden said. “Our system of spectrum allocation simply cannot work when, effectively, it is receivers rather than the FCC that are calling the shots,” he said: “The aviation industry still could build altimeters that squat over a vast swath of spectrum licensed to others and still wave the bloody shirt of planes falling from the sky and people dying -- with the outrageous result that licensees who paid the government $82 Billion in good faith cannot fully use their spectrum! And the GPS industry could continue to deploy literally millions of low-cost poorly designed receivers.” The FCC is examining next steps following a recent notice of inquiry (see 2208050044). Padden said he doesn't have a client in the proceeding.

LTD Broadband signaled it will seek FCC reversal of the agency rejecting the company’s long-form application for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support. At a teleconferenced Minnesota Public Utilities Commission prehearing conference Wednesday, LTD outside counsel Andy Carlson of the Taft firm told Administrative Law Judge Jim LaFave the company believes Minnesota's and other pending state reviews “should generally be stayed while the FCC’s decision is appealed by LTD.” Sept. 12 is the deadline for administrative appeal at the FCC, Carlson said. Due to that date, LaFave deferred further scheduling of Minnesota’s proceeding on whether to revoke LTD Broadband’s eligible telecom carrier (ETC) status (see 2207140047) until a Sept. 20 prehearing conference at 2:30 p.m. CDT. LaFave ordered LTD to provide its long-form application, attachments and related FCC correspondence by Friday to the state Commerce Department and attorney general's office, as well as to the Minnesota Telecom Alliance and the Minnesota Rural Electric Association, which petitioned the PUC to revoke LTD’s ETC status. Others may file to intervene in the proceeding by Sept. 16, the ALJ said. Assistant Attorney General Kristin Berkland said the FCC could act in 145 days on an LTD appeal. Carlson said the FCC moves slowly and could take longer than that. LTD CEO Corey Hauer told us earlier this month the company was considering next steps after the FCC’s rejection (see 2208110006).

The FCC's rejection of SpaceX's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction long-form application earlier this month (see 2208100050) shows "clear error and plainly exceeds agency authority," Commissioner Brendan Carr said Wednesday. It "leave[s] families waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide when we have the technology to get them high-speed service today," he said. He said FCC arguments that Starlink uses untested technology "do not bear out" given it has three more years to meet the speed benchmarks and the company is already exceeding them in other countries. He said criticisms about Starlink's pricing ring hollow when the agency provides universal service awards "for far slower internet services that cost customers far more." The commissioner said bringing fiber to the communities Starlink was to cover will likely cost about $3 billion, vs. the $885 million in support that was going to go to SpaceX. Carr said the RDOF decision "plainly exceeds" the scope of the FCC's limited authority to review the 2020 award. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office and SpaceX didn't comment. In a response Wednesday to California Public Utilities Commission Administrative Law Judge Seaneen Wilson, SpaceX said it's still looking at its options for seeking reconsideration or review of the FCC decision. It asked that, despite that uncertainty, the PUC still go forward with granting it a certificate of public convenience and necessity as an eligible telecommunications carrier. The PUC had asked if SpaceX still wanted a CPCN and eligible telecom carrier designation after the RDOF rejection (see 2208230008).