New, AI-driven technologies could offer an alternative to how spectrum sharing is done, experts said Wednesday during an RCR Wireless webinar. Panelists said AI could provide options to the citizens broadband radio service and increase dynamic sharing of government spectrum.

The Wireless Innovation Forum announced the formation of the Highly Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Task Group. The organization will examine how sharing based on the citizens radio service band model can have applications in other bands. Google’s Andrew Clegg will head the project; he also is WInnForum’s chief technology officer. The group is expected to release a report or recommendation by February 2025, a Wednesday news release said. The release mentions the lower 3 GHz band, a top target of carriers for full-power licensed use (see 2405060051). “The purpose of this project is to start with the best practices identified in CBRS spectrum sharing, and then attempt to simplify and optimize these practices for future applications, including the 3.1 GHz band” Clegg said: “Future spectrum sharing will inevitably face a greater number of incumbent systems and a need for more rapid dynamic reconfiguration, and WInnForum is up to the challenge of adapting what we’ve done in CBRS. It’s the best place to start, given the sharing expertise we’ve developed over nearly ten years.” CommScope, Federated Wireless, Nokia, Sony, the Wireless ISP Association “and others to be announced” are backing the project.

Wi-Fi advocates and wireless carriers offered the NTIA different versions of the 6G world in some of the first comments made public in response to a May request for comment on the state of 6G development (see 2405230010). Comments were due Wednesday. NTIA is expected to eventually post them.

Representatives of Public Knowledge and New America’s Open Technology Institute met with aides to three of the FCC commissioners on Axon Enterprises' request for a waiver (see 2403080044), the future of the 4.9 GHz band and other items. “We noted that Axon’s proposed analog, always-on, fixed-channel and high-power surveillance technology would be unnecessarily disruptive to the public’s use of the U-NII-3 band, which remains the most heavily-trafficked Wi-Fi spectrum and almost certainly the most intensively-used frequency band nationwide,” the groups said. They opposed FirstNet control of the 4.9 GHz band: “No one has presented a single cogent argument why the Commission should abandon its 2023 decision to adopt a band-manager approach.” The groups met with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr, Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington. The language in three filings posted Thursday in docket 07-100 and other dockets was substantially the same for each meeting. The two groups also reported that EchoStar joined them for a meeting with the Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff about handset unlocking rules (see 2408090037). “The recently launched proceeding on handset unlocking will be an unequivocal win for consumers and competitive carriers if adopted,” said a filing in docket 24-186. They also discussed the lower 12 GHz band's future.

AT&T opted to file in opposition to North East Offshore’s request for an FCC waiver of the freeze on nonfederal applications for new or expanded Part 90 operations in the lower 3 GHz band even though the wind farm company has dropped the request (see 2408010039). North East’s request “touches on broader issues that merit addressing on the record,” a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-212 said. The lower 3 GHz band is “an incredibly important piece of the National Spectrum Strategy and the Commission should not be issuing new authorizations that would complicate the reallocation of that band for future mobile broadband services,” AT&T said. The waiver request also raises “complex questions about the Commission’s licensing jurisdiction and potential offshore uses of spectrum that are most appropriately addressed in the Commission’s broader inquiry on the subject,” AT&T said. The FCC sought comment in 2022 on the offshore use of spectrum (see 2209020052).

The FCC sought comment Friday on the future of the 37 GHz band, as expected (see 2407240039). Comments are due Sept. 9 in docket 24-243, per a public notice by the Wireless Bureau. The band is one of five teed up for further investigation in the administration’s national spectrum strategy, though unlike the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands, carriers are not targeting it for licensed, exclusive use. The strategy identifies 37 GHz “as a band for further study ‘to implement a co-equal, shared-use framework allowing federal and non-federal users to deploy operations in the band,’” the public notice says. “We find that additional information on potential uses of the Lower 37 GHz band would be helpful in the preparation of the Lower 37 GHz Report,” it adds, noting that the current record is limited. While commenters predicted uses including fixed wireless, point-to-point links, IoT networks, device-to-device operations, augmented reality, smart cities, smart grids and private networks, “they have not provided much detail about implementation of these services in the band,” the FCC says. The notice requests “specific and updated information on the contemplated uses of the band, to include interdependencies of pairing spectrum bands with the Lower 37 GHz band.” The PN also asks about the “feasibility” of aeronautical mobile service operations in the band. “We anticipate that operations offered in the band initially will be point-to-point and point-to-multipoint operations, although other types of operations -- including mobile operations -- may develop later.” The PN asks about the design of a coordination mechanism. It notes that discussions among the FCC, NTIA and DOD are aimed at a two-step mechanism. “In the first phase, an interference contour would be drawn around each existing and potential site based on its technical parameters, including transmitter details such as location (latitude and longitude), equivalent isotropic radiated power, antenna height, and antenna azimuth angle,” the notice says: If the site’s contour doesn’t overlap with any existing registration, “coordination is successful, and registration of the new site may proceed. If there is overlap, there would be a second phase.”

NTIA will hold a multistakeholder forum on Aug. 23 for nonfederal stakeholders to meet with federal agencies conducting studies of the lower 3 and 7/8 GHz bands as part of the national spectrum strategy. In that and future meetings, “NTIA will solicit targeted information from the public, including industry and academia, on spectrum use cases, coexistence scenarios, existing technology solutions, and technical inputs,” a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register said. The meeting, at 10 a.m., is at the Herbert C. Hoover Federal Building Auditorium. The 3.1-3.45 GHz and 7.125-8.4 GHz bands are a top target for wireless carriers looking for more spectrum for 5G and 6G (see 2403120056).

North East Offshore is dropping its request for an FCC waiver of the freeze on nonfederal applications for new or expanded Part 90 operations in the lower 3 GHz band. The renewable energy company notified the agency that it’s modifying its application to “specify frequencies outside the 3.1-3.3 GHz band, which will eliminate the need” for the FCC to consider a waiver. The request ran into opposition from the wireless and cable industries, which filed comments posted Thursday in docket 24-212. The comments underscore the perceived importance of lower 3 GHz spectrum for 5G and beyond.

The Wi-Fi Alliance told the FCC that proposed modifications of a waiver request to market three investigative and surveillance devices operating at higher power levels than allowed in the 5 GHz band don’t adequately address interference concerns. Axon proposed in July that its devices operate primarily using channels at the upper and lower edges of the U-NII-3 band, “avoiding operations in the more congested center of the band.” The compromise Axon suggests won't “cure the fundamental problem with its Request -- that Axon’s devices will block Wi-Fi access to U-NII-3 spectrum that is critical to meet Americans’ connectivity requirements,” the Alliance said in a filing not yet posted in docket 24-40: “As the record demonstrates, unlike Wi-Fi, Axon’s devices would not implement contention-based protocols intended to ensure equitable access among unlicensed devices to the U-NII-3 band. Axon’s ‘always-on’ protocol makes the failure to ‘listen-before-talk’ even worse.”

The Biden administration appears headed toward a coordination and licensing framework in the lower 37 GHz band, one of five targeted for further study in the administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2311130048). Analysts told us wireless carriers likely have little interest in seeing the band set aside for licensed use, unlike some other bands the administration is studying, especially lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz. The FCC will probably seek comment on 37 GHz in a public notice “on or about” Aug. 6, NTIA said in a recent blog.