FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday that he circulated an order addressing long-form applications of Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless, the designated entities employed by Dish Network to indirectly capture the second-most AWS-3 spectrum of any player in the auction at discounted prices (see 1501300051). Wheeler dropped the news during a media briefing after the commission meeting and declined to say what he had recommended. Industry officials say they have been told the order is an Enforcement Bureau action, which they said could well be bad news for Dish and the two DEs.

A GOP presidential contender on Tuesday declared spectrum, cybersecurity and Internet freedom key priorities in his platform. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., addressed the tech and telecom issues in a speech at Chicago’s 1871, a hub for startups. Rubio, a member of the Commerce Committee, repeatedly has sought to frame himself as a lawmaker engaged with technology issues, giving speeches last year at the Washington headquarters of Uber and Google and startup incubator 1776.

The Senate Commerce Committee may hold or have wanted to hold a hearing the week of July 6 on reallocation of government spectrum, officials familiar with the issue told us Monday. The potential focus would likely be on such reallocation and spectrum efficiency, they said of the ongoing discussions for possible scheduling. Two officials pointed to July 8 as one likely date if the hearing goes forward, although one industry lobbyist told us late Monday that the hearing was postponed. No hearing has been announced, and a committee spokesman declined comment. David Quinalty, GOP telecom policy director for the committee, recently said Commerce will tackle spectrum policy issues in earnest in the second half of this year (see 1506180043). Several Commerce Committee Republicans recently backed the Wireless Innovation Act (S-1618) introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Thursday (see 1506180045), which was lauded by several wireless industry interests. The bill would require NTIA to reallocate 200 MHz of spectrum below 5 GHz. “This important bill reflects the undeniable reality that we’re living in the middle of a mobile revolution,” said Verizon Senior Vice President Peter Davidson in a blog post Monday. “The Wireless Innovation Act is a good start to many of the necessary reforms to ensure that enough spectrum will be cleared and repurposed to meet soaring consumers’ ... demand for wireless services.”

Google supports a proposal that the U.S. delegation endorse an agenda item looking at spectrum for unmanned aerial systems at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019, the company said in comments to the FCC. Facebook offered similar comments. One task of WRC-15, which starts Nov. 2 in Geneva, is to decide on whether there will be an agenda item on drones at the next WRC meeting (see 1505200052). The FCC WRC Advisory Committee (WAC) submitted two different positions on the topic. Comments were posted in docket 04-286.

Four House leaders have begun what are likely to be ongoing meetings with the Department of Transportation, the FCC and NTIA on how to best share spectrum, if at all, in the upper 5 GHz band. The bipartisan heads of the House Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee announced interest in such meetings April 20 and schedules finally aligned to allow the first meeting to happen last week. The crux of the upper 5 GHz band debate involves automotive interests that hold the spectrum for intelligent transportation systems and others who want to use that spectrum for unlicensed purposes, an occasionally contentious source of debate for years that has led to testing efforts now.

The FCC World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee (WAC) held its eighth and likely final meeting Wednesday before WRC-15, scheduled to start Nov. 2 in Geneva. WAC members reported continuing disagreements on spectrum for drones and for mobile communications. The WAC, coordinated by the FCC, reflects the position of U.S. industry on issues before the WRC.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects the incentive auction to be well underway a year from now with active broadcaster participation, he said Wednesday. He also defended the net neutrality order as creating a flexible, not dictatorial, broadband Internet framework. The planned takeover of Suddenlink by a European company showed that the regulation wasn’t chilling investment in the U.S., he said in a Q&A session with Accenture Managing Director Shahid Ahmed at the management consulting firm’s Network Summit.

The AWS-3 auction is over but “the heavy lifting” is just getting started as industry and the government work to clear the spectrum bought in the auction, said Paige Atkins, NTIA associate administrator for spectrum management, at the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee meeting (see 1505120040) Tuesday. Relocation could take up to 10 years, she said: “We expect significant sharing to occur in the interim and a lot of coordination and collaboration to occur during that time.” Atkins said the Competitive Carriers Association and CTIA will host an AWS-3 government and information exchange June 4, which will be open to winning bidders in the auction. “This is to begin the informal dialogue around expectations, processes and tools that will facilitate the transition,” she said, noting it will be similar to coordination after the 2008 AWS-1 auction. NTIA and the Institute of Telecommunications Sciences (ITS) are expanding their spectrum monitoring pilot in the 3.5 GHz band, spectrum set aside for shared use, Atkins said. They're working with federal agencies to host four additional sensors and potentially expand coverage beyond 3.5 GHz, she said. ITS, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is also developing a measured spectrum occupancy database, she said. “That’s intended to make the sensor data available on a near real-time basis to support policy planning, engineering, and eventually, potentially, dynamic sharing.” Spectrum for international mobile telecom (IMT) is the top priority of the U.S. at the World Radiocommunications Conference later this year, Atkins said. “Go figure,” she said. “The challenge for mobile broadband services is the same internationally as nationally,” she said: “The most suitable bands are already being used by other services for things like broadcasting” and satellite links. The U.S. focus is on sharing, she said. The U.S. supports sharing in the 3.5 GHz band, the 600 MHz spectrum being offered in the TV incentive auction and the L band, at 1424-1518 MHz, which the U.S. supports but doesn't plan to implement here, she said. The second priority is spectrum for beyond-line-of sight command and control link for unmanned aircraft systems. A likely topic of the WRC in 2019 is a look at the use of bands above 6 GHz, she said.

The FCC's Informal Working Group 2 (IWG-2) of the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) Committee approved two proposals for the World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee (WAC) meeting to be held May 20. IWG-2 requested further offline discussions for several proposals and draft agenda items at a teleconference meeting Monday, which included more than 30 representatives from the terrestrial telecom and tech industry.

Globalstar’s proposed authenticated Wi-Fi terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) wouldn’t interfere with neighboring Wi-Fi networks at 2.4 GHz and could relieve congestion, Guggenheim Securities analyst Paul Gallant said in a note Wednesday. Globalstar released results of its TLPS demonstration at the FCC Technology Experience Center on March 6 and 9. The test was conducted by test lab AT4 Wireless, venture fund Jarvinian Ventures and technology consultant Roberson & Associates, Globalstar said. “American consumers will benefit significantly from the provision of TLPS across 22 megahertz of additional broadband spectrum in the 2.4 GHz band,” it said in an ex parte notice posted Wednesday in docket 13-213. TLPS works well with Wi-Fi operations on IEEE 802.11 channel 11 and Bluetooth device operations in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical band at 2400 to 2483.5 MHz, it said. Globalstar will likely win FCC approval in the first half of 2015, Gallant said. The commission asked for a technical demonstration at a Feb. 6 roundtable to address engineering concerns, and Globalstar, Bluetooth, NCTA and the Wi-Fi Alliance developed joint test plans at the commission on March 6 and 9, he said. Opponents of the system might file their own analysis of the tests, he said. The TLPS test created “meaningful improvement in existing Wi-Fi,” including a 40 percent increase in overall throughput when Wi-Fi traffic is spread across TLPS, Gallant said. “Greater congestion relief is likely in a noisier, real-world environment with many Wi-Fi access points contending for Wi-Fi channels.” Gerst Capital filed an opposition comment, questioning if any device operating on Wi-Fi Channel 14 was subject to Part 15.247 testing, to measure emissions limits at 2495 MHz instead of 2483.5 MHz. Deploying an inferior legacy standard isn't a viable option for TLPS, said manager of Gerst Capital Greg Gerst in his comment. "Publically available data refutes many key statements that Globalstar has made," said Gerst, who has an engineering background. He found discrepancies in Globalstar's tests. "I suspect there's something wrong in their test setup. They’re salesmen. All the so-called testing they’ve done is superficial at best, dubious at worst."