T-Mobile US scoops us more than 7,000 2.5 GHz licenses

 T-Mobile U.S. won more than 7,000 county-based licenses covering 81 million people primarily in rural areas in the FCC's recently-completed Auction 108.  The cost is $304 million.

best value, backed by the best customer experience from the best team. This additional spectrum only accelerates that mission,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “Our competitors have been distracted, whether they were trying to become media conglomerates or were betting on the wrong 5G strategy, and their customers are paying the price. Meanwhile, we have been laser focused on being the best in wireless, and we’re seeing the results of that focus play out now.”

“We’ve been clear in our mission for years. We've supercharged the Un-carrier by building the leading wireless network in America – with leading breadth and depth – and paired it with the 

https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/coverage-map

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FCC Auction 108 concludes - 2.5 GHz Spectrum

Bidding has concluded in the FCC Auction 108.  Gross proceeds from the bid are expected to amount to $427,789,670.

The FCC said it will post full results in the next few days. 

https://auctiondata.fcc.gov/public/projects/auction108

FCC commences 5G mid-band spectrum auction

Sunday, July 31, 2022  Auctions, FCC  

The FCC opened bidding in its latest mid-band spectrum auction at 10am on Friday, July 29.

Auction 108 makes available 8,017 new flexible-use, county-based overlay licenses in the 2.5 GHz band. These licenses are in areas with unassigned 2.5 GHz spectrum— mostly rural parts of the country—following disposition of applications filed in the Rural Tribal Priority Window, which has to date resulted in the grant of 335 licenses to serve Tribal communities.

“We all know there are gaps in 5G coverage, especially in rural America, and this auction is a unique opportunity to fill them in,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “I am grateful to the teams that have worked so hard to both stand up this auction and ensure the success of our efforts to make these airwaves available to Tribes to support wireless service in their communities”

Auction 108 utilizes a “clock-1” auction format similar to the clock phase of past FCC auctions, but rather than offering multiple generic spectrum blocks in a category in a geographic area, it will offer only a single frequency-specific license in a category in a county. The new flexible-use geographic overlay licenses in the 2.5 GHz band (2496-2690 MHz) must protect the operations of incumbent licensees within the auctioned areas, including any licensees that receive their licenses through applications filed in the Rural Tribal Priority Window.

http://www.fcc.gov/auction/108

FCC incentivizes to open underutilized spectrum for rural carriers

Monday, July 18, 2022  FCC  

The FCC voted to create an Enhanced Competition Incentive Program (ECIP) to establish incentives for wireless licensees to make underutilized spectrum available to small carriers, Tribal Nations, and entities serving rural areas. The new program encourages licensees to partition, disaggregate, or lease spectrum to better match available spectrum resources with entities that seek to provide needed services to under-connected communities.  Under...

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Reliance Jio becomes India's biggest spectrum holder

Reliance Jio was the largest purchaser in the auction of 5G spectrum conducted by the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, over the past week.

Jio confirmed that it acquired spectrum in the 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 3300MHz and 26GHz bands. The company said it will use equipment made in India for its 5G rollout.

Jio's total cost of acquiring the technology agnostic spectrum for a period of 20 years is Rs. 88,078 crore. As per terms of the spectrum auction, the spectrum payments have to be made over 20 equated annual instalments, with interest computed at 7.2% per annum. 

Through this acquisition, Jio’s total owned spectrum footprint has increased significantly to 26,772 MHz (uplink + downlink), which is the highest in India:

• Sub-GHz: Jio has the highest amount of sub-GHz spectrum with at least 2X10 MHz contiguous spectrum in both 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands across each of the 22 circles.
• Mid-band: Jio is the only operator which has at least 2X10 MHz in 1800 MHz band (with 2X20 MHz in six key circles), 40 MHz in 2300 MHz band and 100 MHz in 3300 MHz band across all the 22 circles.
• mmWave: In addition, Jio also has right to use 1,000 MHz in the millimetre wave band (26 GHz) in each of the 22 circles which will be crucial to enable enterprise use cases as well as provide high-quality streaming services.

Shri Akash M Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio Infocomm issued the following statement:

“We have always believed that India will become a leading economic power in the world by adopting the power of breakthrough technologies. This was the vision and conviction that gave birth to Jio. The speed, scale and societal impact of Jio’s 4G rollout is unmatched anywhere in the world. Now, with a bigger ambition and stronger resolve, Jio is set to lead India’s march into the 5G era. We will celebrate ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ with a pan India 5G rollout. Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services. We will provide services, platforms and solutions that will accelerate India’s digital revolution, especially in crucial sectors like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Manufacturing and e-Governance and make another proud contribution to Honourable Prime Minister’s DIGITAL INDIA MISSION.”

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FCC commences 5G mid-band spectrum auction

The FCC opened bidding in its latest mid-band spectrum auction at 10am on Friday, July 29.

Auction 108 makes available 8,017 new flexible-use, county-based overlay licenses in the 2.5 GHz band. These licenses are in areas with unassigned 2.5 GHz spectrum— mostly rural parts of the country—following disposition of applications filed in the Rural Tribal Priority Window, which has to date resulted in the grant of 335 licenses to serve Tribal communities.

“We all know there are gaps in 5G coverage, especially in rural America, and this auction is a unique opportunity to fill them in,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “I am grateful to the teams that have worked so hard to both stand up this auction and ensure the success of our efforts to make these airwaves available to Tribes to support wireless service in their communities”

Auction 108 utilizes a “clock-1” auction format similar to the clock phase of past FCC auctions, but rather than offering multiple generic spectrum blocks in a category in a geographic area, it will offer only a single frequency-specific license in a category in a county. The new flexible-use geographic overlay licenses in the 2.5 GHz band (2496-2690 MHz) must protect the operations of incumbent licensees within the auctioned areas, including any licensees that receive their licenses through applications filed in the Rural Tribal Priority Window.

http://www.fcc.gov/auction/108

FCC incentivizes to open underutilized spectrum for rural carriers

Monday, July 18, 2022  FCC  

The FCC voted to create an Enhanced Competition Incentive Program (ECIP) to establish incentives for wireless licensees to make underutilized spectrum available to small carriers, Tribal Nations, and entities serving rural areas. The new program encourages licensees to partition, disaggregate, or lease spectrum to better match available spectrum resources with entities that seek to provide needed services to under-connected communities.  Under...

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Rosenworcel proposes minimum of 100/20 and goal of 1,000/500

Sunday, July 17, 2022  FCC  

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is proposing a new the national standard for minimum broadband speed of 100 Mbps for download and 20 Mbps for upload. She is also proposing for the FCC to set a separate national goal of 1 Gbps/500 Mbps for the future. “The needs of internet users long ago surpassed the FCC’s 25/3 speed metric, especially during a global health pandemic that moved so much of life online,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel.  “The...

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FCC begins Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative for mobile operators

Thursday, July 07, 2022  FCC, Mobile  

The FCC launched a Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative (MDRI) aimed at ensuring that the nation’s communications networks are more available in the midst of disasters and other emergencies. MDRI will leverage the industry-developed Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is a voluntary agreement among a limited group of facilities-based mobile wireless service providers.   This agreement, which the Commission endorsed...

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Winning bidders in FCC's midband 5G spectrum auction

AT&T was the top winner in the FCC's "Andromeda" auction of flexible-use licenses in the 3.45 GHz band. Gross proceeds for the auction exceeded $22.5 billion. The list of winning bidders was published on Friday.

Auction 110 makes available 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum for commercial use across the contiguous United States.  The spectrum licenses are divided into ten 10-megahertz blocks licensed by geographic areas known as Partial Economic Areas (PEAs).  License winners will operate within a cooperative sharing framework that will enable commercial use by an array of service providers, while also ensuring coexistence with federal incumbents where and when they require continued access to the band.  

“Today’s 3.45 GHz auction results demonstrate that the Commission’s pivot to mid-band spectrum for 5G was the right move,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.  “I am pleased to see that this auction also is creating opportunities for a wider variety of competitors, including small businesses and rural service providers.  This is a direct result of the Commission’s efforts to structure this auction with diversity and competition front of mind.  Enabling commercial use of this spectrum is important to America’s continuing economic recovery and 5G leadership, and I look forward to the continued collaboration between the FCC, NTIA, and other federal agencies to find innovative ways to make spectrum available for next generation commercial and government services.”  

Additional notes:

• Thirteen of the twenty-three companies with winning bids in Auction 110 qualified as small businesses or as entities serving rural communities.  
• Compared to the prior 5G auction, this auction saw a substantial increase in the number of winning bidders per market: over one-third of the top 100 markets have at least four winning bidders, compared with 10% of the top 100 markets for Auction 107. 
• Notably, the 3.45 GHz auction closed as one of highest grossing auctions in the FCC’s history. 
• Collectively, the 3.45 GHz band and the neighboring 3.5 GHz and 3.7 GHz bands represent 530 megahertz of mid-band spectrum for 5G, the next generation of wireless services.  Wider 5G deployment means that more people in more places will be more connected.  

http://www.fcc.gov/auction/110

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Spectrum auctions to top FCC's August meeting

The Federal Communications Commission's open meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 2, 2018, is expected to clear up key spectrum issues: On the agenda:

Spectrum Frontiers Auction Procedures – setting the rules for auctioning Upper Microwave Flexible Use Licenses in the 28 GHz (Auction 101) and 24 GHz (Auction 102) bands.

The auction of the 28 GHz band (Auction 101) would employ the FCC's standard simultaneous multiple round (SMR) auction format, which offers every license for bid at the same time and consists of successive bidding rounds in which bidders may place bids on individual licenses. This auction is scheduled to commence on November 14, 2018,

The auction of the 24 GHz band (Auction 102) would employ a clock auction format, which would allow bidding on generic blocks in each PEA in successive clock bidding rounds. The bidding for the 24 GHz band (Auction 102) will be scheduled to commence after the conclusion of bidding in Auction 101.

Making 39 GHz Band Auction Ready – transitioning existing spectrum holdings in the 39 GHz band (38.6-40 GHz) to a new flexible-use band plan by offering new licenses for contiguous spectrum in the band.

Wireline Infrastructure – an order to reform the pole attachment process, allowing one-touch, make-ready for most pole attachments. The FCC may also issue a Declaratory Ruling to prohibit state and local moratoria on telecommunications facilities deployment.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-announces-tentative-agenda-august-open-meeting-4

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FCC plans $2bn auction to support rural broadband

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the next step toward launching an auction that will provide nearly $2 billion over ten years to support the expansion of high-speed Internet access to consumers and businesses in rural areas that are currently unserved by fixed broadband service.

FCC noted that the process represents the first time it has held an auction to allocate ongoing Connect America Fund (CAF) support for fixed broadband and voice services in rural areas. The use of a market-based reverse auction mechanism is designed to enable the FCC to expand and support the provision of quality rural fixed broadband and voice services at a lower cost and to maximise its investment.

The auction is scheduled to commence in 2018. With the public announcement, the FCC is seeking comment on the proposed application and bidding procedures for the auction, including: how interested parties can qualify to participate in the auction; how bidders will submit their bids; and how the FCC will process bids to determine the winners and support amounts.

This first-of-its-kind auction of support for fixed broadband and voice service is expected to attract parties that have not previously participated in an FCC auction. Therefore, the FCC's Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force, together with the Wireline Competition Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, plan to provide detailed educational materials and hands-on practice opportunities in advance of the auction.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-takes-next-step-toward-2-billion-rural-broadband-expansion

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