AT&T urged the FCC to proceed cautiously in approving the launch of 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) operators following public trials. “AT&T was an active participant in these public trials and AT&T appreciates the efforts of these AFC System applicants to work with AT&T to identify the source of discrepancies between AFC System calculated results for standard power device scenarios and the values calculated by AT&T,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 21-352: “AT&T does not believe the results of the public trials warrant deferring action on these applications, although AT&T does suggest that any grant of final AFC System authority be conditioned to ensure continued compliance with inter-industry agreements and to require some unresolved matters to be addressed within those inter-industry organizations.” AT&T noted that some of the tests “brought to light different practices and illustrated that reasonable engineers can differ with respect to how the same basic propagation calculations are implemented.”

Sony filed a report at the FCC on the public trial of its 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) system. Similar to other tests, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and AT&T Labs filed the largest number of objections, Sony reported Friday in docket 21-352. EPRI challenged 93 of 143 test cases submitted, but its challenges “may not be valid” because the institute relies on a different propagation model than allowed by the FCC, Sony said. AT&T challenged 24 test cases: the report said: “We analyzed the causes of the discrepancies …using detailed calculation results provided by AT&T Labs. As a result, the causes were identified and resolved.”

Activity at the recent World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai points to the need for U.S. policymakers to make more spectrum available for 5G and 6G, blogged Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum. “WRC-23 made clear that the rest of the world is putting significant emphasis on making mid-band spectrum available for full-power 5G use,” he wrote. “Perhaps the most significant outcome of the conference is that the 6 GHz band -- which has been allocated for unlicensed access in the United States across the full 1200 megahertz -- is now earmarked to be the harmonized home for licensed mobile in the top half of the band for a majority of the world,” Javed wrote last week: “While some tried at the conference to set up a dynamic that suggested that countries would have to ‘choose’ between the U.S. vision for Wi-Fi or China’s vision for mobile, the reality was that some European countries were a major force for identifying the 6 GHz band for 5G and many countries sided with that view.” The lower 3 GHz is “truly a global 5G band now” with more than 50 nations using it “as the home for full-power 5G,” he said. “Now the WRC has harmonized this use across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,” he added. “This includes adding a new primary mobile allocation for the United States in the 3.3-3.4 GHz band and removing regulatory limitations on using 5G near the border in the 3.6-3.8 GHz band,” he said. Javed said the 7/8 GHz band “is now the global harmonization target for expanding mobile capacity for 5G and beyond.” The 4 GHz band “will be studied for future 5G use in the other two major ITU regions, but, unfortunately, not here in the Americas,” he said: “Agency opposition to study this band either domestically or internationally deprives the Administration of a promising option available to our key rivals.” Javed is a former top aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

The Wireless Broadband Alliance filed a report at the FCC on public tests of its 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) system. “This report demonstrates that WBA successfully completed the public testing of its AFC system,” said a Friday filing in docket 21-352: “Only one challenge was a valid concern and WBA has since corrected that in its AFC.” WBA said other challenges were tied to differences in testing methodologies.

The 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference “has been a clear success for U.S. interests," U.S. delegation head Steve Lang, State Department deputy assistant secretary-international information and communications policy, told reporters Friday, minutes after the four-week U.N. event concluded. He said the U.S. delegation "achieved many important objectives," including further harmonization of 5G spectrum across the Americas with an international mobile telecommunications (IMT) identification in the 3.3-3.4 and 3.6-3.8 GHz bands in Region 2. That creates 500 MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 3 GHz band for 5G, Lang said.

Federated Wireless filed a report at the FCC on public tests of its 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) system. As was the case with Qualcomm (see 2312070062), Federated said most challenges came from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and AT&T Labs. Federated “received 16 challenges from AT&T and the FCC that resulted in modifications to the Federated Wireless AFC system,” said the report filed Thursday in docket 21-352. Another 12 challenges involved a buffer area along the Canadian border, which were also resolved, the company said. The EPRI challenges “relate to the implementation of the propagation models specified in FCC Part 15 for different distances” and addressing them would require changes to FCC rules, Federated said.

Qualcomm submitted to the FCC Thursday a report on public tests of its 6 GHz automated frequency coordination (AFC) system, which it earlier announced would start in August (see 2308300018). Only the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and AT&T Labs filed challenges, Qualcomm said. “Qualcomm was unable to replicate EPRI’s calculations” and differences are tied to test methodologies, the report said: “Out of 214 test vectors submitted, AT&T Labs only challenged 40 test vectors. For each test vector challenged, AT&T provided comparison results as figures and eventually provided detailed logs from their models, which were helpful for understanding and resolving the mismatches. AT&T engineers worked with Qualcomm to determine the source of the mismatches.”

The U.S. delegation to the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai has been quiet two weeks into the long-awaited conference. Steve Lang, the State Department official who replaced now-Commissioner Anna Gomez as delegation head, will not hold a news conference until after the WRC concludes Dec. 15, a spokesperson confirmed.

Federated Wireless Chief Technology Officer Kurt Schaubach and other company executives met with FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff on the future of the 6 GHz band, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. Federated discussed how an automated frequency coordination system “could be leveraged to protect licensed incumbent services, while enabling and expediting access by Standard Power unlicensed devices to the U-NII 6 and U-NII 8 bands and providing additional power and flexibility for Very Low Power unlicensed devices to the U-NII-5 through U-NII-8 bands,” the filing said. Federated is testing its AFC system as it moves toward full operation (see 2310060025).

Republican condemnation of the FCC’s actions since it shifted to a Democratic majority in late September -- and Democrats’ defense of the commission’s recent record -- dominated a Thursday House Communications Subcommittee hearing on agency oversight, as expected (see 2311290001). The hearing’s slightly rancorous tone signaled a return to more overtly partisan oversight, in contrast to relatively more bipartisan discussion when FCC commissioners testified in front of the subpanel in June, while the commission was still tied 2-2 (see 2306210076).