FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Ruth Milkman defended a May 17 public notice seeking more information on a 600 MHz band plan following the incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum, saying the notice merely explores issues on which the agency needed additional comment. The notice proved controversial and was the hot topic at the CTIA annual meeting held the week after the notice was published (CD May 24 p1).

Despite its near-ubiquity, Wi-Fi has a long way to go, whether it’s increasing speed, reliability, IPv6 capability or capacity for multiple devices, said executives from Cisco, Arris and CableLabs on a Tuesday NCTA convention panel. Providers must work with the FCC to free up spectrum, must enable IPv6 for their consumers, and must look to new software and hardware solutions to improve speed, efficiency and reliability, they said.

The FCC’s upcoming incentive auctions will continue to be one of the Office of Engineering and Technology’s top priorities during the agency’s leadership transition, said OET Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday during a National Spectrum Management Association (NSMA) conference. The FCC would work on the incentive auctions “no matter who the chairman is” because the auction preparatory process involves statutory requirements, he said. The FCC and OET will remain as dedicated as ever to making more spectrum available for use, and there is “every reason to expect” that will continue under new leadership, Knapp said. The Obama administration is also hoping to make additional spectrum available by freeing up a total of 500 MHz of federal spectrum by 2020.

The FCC International Bureau granted EchoStar a special temporary authority license for operation of tracking, telemetry and command frequencies necessary to move EchoStar 6 from 76.8 degrees west to 96.2 degrees west. The STA also allows EchoStar to operate EchoStar 6 at 96.2 degrees west using the 12.2-12.7 GHz and 17.3-17.8 GHz bands, the bureau said in an order (http://fcc.us/XosOnE). The bureau said the proposed EchoStar 6 operations “will have no foreseeable adverse impact on U.S.-licensed operations or related U.S. ITU filings,” it said.

The U.K. Office of Communications wants input on future spectrum requirements for mobile broadband and potential frequency ranges that could be considered for new mobile allocations at World Radiocommunications Conference 2015, it said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bopfzv). Ofcom will use the results of the consultation to develop U.K. positions and negotiating lines for two ITU-R meetings in July that will prioritize frequency ranges for study and reach initial conclusions on spectrum needs for mobile broadband, it said. Related work is taking place in the EU, where the Radio Spectrum Policy Group is analyzing bands between 400 MHz and 6 GHz which could become available for wireless broadband, it said. Ofcom said it will provide more opportunities for comment on all the issues to be addressed at WRC-15. Comments are due April 29.

Similar to the first comment round, reply comments on rules for an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum found deep divisions among almost 100 parties that weighed in. There has been general agreement that the FCC’s proposed band plan needs major revision (CD Jan 29 p1). But there has been little consensus on answers to many of the questions raised by the FCC in a Sept. 28 NPRM.

BRUSSELS -- More sophisticated devices, more use of mobile applications and increased network speeds are expected to be the main drivers for commercial services over the next 10 years, executives working on a European Commission (EC) study said. Executives differed over the impact of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Wi-Fi for network offloading and small cells may be integrated in the future, an Ericsson executive said. The study focuses on the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. with an extrapolation of results to the 27 countries in the EU.

The Consumer Electronics Association laid out a set of principles it said would help the FCC hold a successful incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. Google and Microsoft stressed the importance of maintaining a healthy chunk of the spectrum for unlicensed use. AT&T and Verizon countered small carrier arguments over who should be allowed to participate in the auction.

Minnesota will fall short of its broadband goals, a governor’s task force said this week. The 13-member group assembled its recommendations over 12 months, it told Gov. Mark Dayton, the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party member who created the group in November 2011. Minnesota should offer grants or tax credits to encourage some of its roughly 120 providers to deploy in unserved areas, the task force recommended. Its members include the presidents of AT&T Minnesota, Communications Workers of America Local 7201, MVTV Wireless and the Midwest Region of CenturyLink. The state should also expand a tax credit for central office equipment to cover fiber and broadband equipment purchases, coordinate the efforts of supplying broadband to anchor and safety institutions to help deploy in rural Minnesota, coordinate broadband deployment with highway construction and develop a Minnesota Fiber Collaboration Database, among other proposed initiatives like funding students in need of broadband scholarships and spending more on library and school computer stations, it said.