More than three years after a 6 GHz Further NPRM was approved in April 2020 (see 2004230059), the FCC hasn't acted. Speculation in 2020 was that the agency could act before the end of the Trump administration (see 2012180057). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit largely upheld the 2020 6 GHz order 18 months ago (see 2112280047).

Representatives of the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Innovation Forum met with Chief Ron Repasi and others from the FCC Office of Engineering Technology to present “a complete package” of specifications and test plans for evaluating 6 GHz automated frequency coordination systems. The documents “represent a consensus of 6 GHz stakeholders including component and equipment manufacturers, AFC system applicants, network operators, incumbent and unlicensed operators, system integrators, software companies, and many others,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295. The groups expressed hope “that the delivery and availability of this package will support the Commission’s effort to approve the AFC systems for full commercial operations.”

Electric utility representatives, led by the Edison Electric Institute, discussed a recent Pacific Gas & Electric study on the interference threat to band incumbents from unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band (see 2304260037), meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The study said 47 of the PG&E links studied would have to be moved within five years, four links “showed such severe risk for interference that PG&E is already moving them to 11 GHz channels at significant cost to the company” and only five “will be able to operate effectively in five years," the utilities said in a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-295.

The FCC is extending the deadlines for filings made in the universal licensing system and antenna structure registration system (ASR) and warned that, like those systems, the tower construction notification system (TCNS) and E-106 System also went down last Friday at about 6:30 p.m. EDT, said a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest.

Use of the 6 GHz band will make Wi-Fi more efficient and means Wi-Fi devices won’t have to also work in legacy bands, said Rolf De Vegt, Qualcomm Technologies vice president-technical standards, on a Qualcomm webinar Tuesday. De Vegt said 6 GHz is the right band to meet today's needs. Wi-Fi started out with only about 90 MHz of spectrum in the 4.2 GHz band before the 5 GHz and then 6 GHz bands were added, he said. The addition of 6 GHz in 2020 (see 2004240011) more than doubled the amount of spectrum available for unlicensed, he said. “When devices operate in 6 GHz there is no need to support all the legacy modes,” which are “slower modes and less efficient,” De Vegt said. “What we can really focus on when we deploy networks in the 6 GHz band” is using “the most modern and the latest techniques for those particular Wi-Fi networks,” he said. The opening of 6 GHz is “extremely timely” as fiber is built out worldwide, he said. Without the 6 GHz band, Wi-Fi would become “the bottleneck” in the network, he said. The amount of the band opened for Wi-Fi varies around the world, but “leading tech nations” like the U.S., South Korea, Canada and Brazil are making the full band available, and not just the lower 500 MHz, recognizing “this is going to spur a lot of growth and innovation in all kinds of industries,” De Vegt said. “Wi-Fi connects the world” and now carries most wireless data network traffic, he said. Currently, an estimated 19 billion Wi-Fi devices are in use worldwide, he said. Wi-Fi networks are growing in every home, “it’s not just about your laptop or phone,” said Alap Modi, principal solutions architect at Wi-Fi equipment company Eero. The types of use cases that are growing require fast speed and low latency and that’s what 6 GHz offers, he said. ISPs are offering faster and faster connections to the home, but “inside your home you are still relying on Wi-Fi,” he said. Eero offers devices that use 160 MHz channels, and that offer multi-GB speeds in the home, he said.

A representative of Meta Platforms urged the FCC to complete work on its April 2020 Further NPRM (see 2004230059) on the 6 GHz band, in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We discussed how the 6 GHz band could be used to enable very low power (VLP) devices and how VLP can safely operate with incumbent operations in the band,” said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-295. Meta “noted the importance of VLP devices to wireless innovation and that the Commission now has an extensive record supporting the approval of VLP devices.”

The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) remains concerned about harmful interference in the 6 GHz band and asked the FCC to take steps asked for by APCO and others (see 2304030032) to protect band incumbents, said a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. “In MCCA member cities,” the band “supports radio towers, emergency communications centers, and cross-jurisdictional communications,” MCCA said: “Given the importance of these functions, the FCC must ensure that the operations of public safety entities and other incumbent users of the 6 GHz band are adequately protected from potential interference stemming from unlicensed use of the spectrum.”

Encina Communications updated the FCC on the company’s proposal to use Part 101 frequency coordination procedures as an alternative to automated frequency coordination (AFC) in the 6 GHz band (see 2208150040), in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 18-295. Last July the FCC issued an experimental license to Encina to operate an outdoor unlicensed standard power access point network in the 6 GHz band, requiring coordination with band incumbents, the filing said. “In contrast to the lack of consensus and the timing uncertainty surrounding the development of an AFC system, there is unanimous agreement by fixed services operators that Rule 101.103(d), which was first adopted by the FCC in and is grounded it decades of practical experience, can successfully be used to accomplish prior coordination,” Encina said: Because the rule “requires that each and every network operating in a licensed band must be coordinated prior to operation, the experimental licensed network has shown that Rule 101.103(d) can be used to coordinate unlicensed networks in any and all locations nationwide.”

The Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition said issues raised by APCO last year on alleged interference to Miami-Dade County’s operations in the 6 GHz band (see 2211220044) demonstrate the need for additional protection for band incumbents. “The Miami-Dade interference illustrates the ineffectiveness of existing interference detection and remediation options for licensees,” the coalition said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-295. Interference first impacted the licensee in November 2020 and continues, the coalition said: “It took the licensee and its vendor nearly a year at significant expense to pinpoint the interference. Once identified, it took a further nine months for the Commission to formally warn one of the offending operators.” FWCC said two other operators apparently still haven't received formal warning letters.

Apple, Google and Meta told FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff the results of recent field tests of the potential interference from 6 GHz very-low-power (VLP) transmitters on a fixed-service receiver. The companies are among those that want the FCC to authorize additional VLP operations in the band, as proposed in a 2020 Further NPRM (see 2211230034). “Using a drone to create an impracticable scenario, the FS receiver was only affected when the VLP device was very close to the FS beam centerline,” the companies said, posted Wednesday in docket 19-295. Tests were performed by researchers at the University of California, San Diego.