Network management

One of the things that will enable T-Mobile and Sprint to move fast with their 5G integration is a not-so-little thing called Massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO). Of course, it’s business as usual for each company while they make their case before regulators, but Sprint CTO John Saw said one of the things that will make for a faster integration is Massive MIMO, something Sprint has been working on for some time.  “With Massive MIMO we are able to actually upgrade existing towers,” Saw said.

As part of the working group efforts within the Federal Communications Commission's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), one subcommittee has collected data on telecommunication pole attachment rates and published the information along with some very early data analysis.

The City of San Jose (CA) announced it has reached a tentative $5 million agreement with AT&T to deploy small cell technology on city-owned light poles. The non exclusive, 15-year agreement provides funding to help bolster the city's first responder communications network in addition to paying $1,500 per year for each of the projected 750 light poles to be used. The agreement still needs to be approved by the City Council at its May 1 meeting.

Big business is quietly trouncing cities in the fight over the future of the internet. The results of an obscure, bureaucratic battle inside the U.S. communications regulator could decide not only which Americans get ultra-fast internet but how much it’ll cost and even what city streetlights will look like.

As a policymaker, I am committed to seeing the US win the 5G race. As with 4G, we have to focus on two things: spectrum and infrastructure. At the Federal Communications Commission, we have already assigned more high-band spectrum for 5G than any country in the world—we’re more than four gigahertz ahead of second-place China.  Cutting regulatory red tape is a big deal because it can flip the business case for thousands of communities. Communities that might have been uneconomical for the private sector to serve, will now get their shot at next-gen networks.

[Speech] Over the last three-plus years, the Commission has rightly focused its time and energy to ensure that next-generation, or 5G, networks come to fruition. Why is this so important? It’s about a global race to be the first among many competing nations to 5G. Leading the world in 5G will allow U.S. companies to help shape its future growth, standards, and capabilities – all of which have a tremendous impact on our future economic success.

The Federal Communications Commission's proposed ban on Huawei and ZTE gear in government-funded projects will hurt small Internet providers' efforts to deploy broadband, according to the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), a lobby group for rural Internet service providers. Under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal, ISPs who use federal money to build or expand broadband service would end up with fewer options for buying network gear. This would "irreparably damage broadband networks (and limit future deployment) in many rural and remote areas throughout the country," the RWA told the FCC. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai shared with his fellow Commissioners a proposal to help address national security threats to US communications networks and their supply chains. Specifically, the draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, if adopted, would propose to bar the use of money from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a national security threat to United States communications networks or the communications supply chain. Chairman Pai will call for a vote on this proposal at the Commission’s April 17 meeting.

Recently, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years' worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received. Facebook uses phone-contact data as part of its friend recommendation algorithm.

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to make a directive on 5G, the next-generation, high-speed wireless standard, that could significantly affect local government control of infrastructure. Two cities, San Jose (CA) which lies in the heart of Silicon Valley, and Lincoln (NE) an innovative university and capitol city, both could be profoundly affected if the FCC decides to “cut red tape” with modifications to small cell antenna deployment rules.