Wireless Telecommunications

On Sept 17, the House Communications Subcommittee held the hearing Trump FCC: Four Years of Lost Opportunities.

When it came to naming the company's top-priorities, AT&T CEO John Stankey said adding more fiber topped the list. AT&T's second key priority is making sure that it has broadband connectivity on 5G, which means even more fiber. Stankey said anything AT&T could do to put more fiber out into the network was a top priority because fiber fuels both the consumer and business segments.

We have sustained experience and responsibilities like few other companies during the coronavirus pandemic. You don’t design a network for a pandemic per se. But it turns out that investing more than $135 billion over the past 5 years¹ to build a robust network with self-healing architectures and open standards can help ready it for just about anything. Today, we’re continuing to see high demand for more connectivity-based services and our network is performing well.

Verizon has recently completed lab trials with Corning and begun lab trials with Samsung on new 5G mmWave in-building solutions which, when commercially launched, will provide 5G mmWave coverage inside facilities such as hospitals, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, schools, ports, retail stores and more. The launch of these indoor cell sites will not only extend the footprint of Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, but will also bring the promise of private networks with Mobile Edge Compute (MEC) capabilities one step closer.

The Federal Communications Commission held a ground-breaking, marathon virtual event Sept 14, hosting numerous stakeholders in the wireless ecosystem to discuss open radio access networks (RANs). The main impetus for the event was to promote open RAN technologies for 5G as an alternative to RAN equipment from the Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE. Currently, the choices for telecom equipment are fairly limited to the big vendors Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Huawei.

Recently, the idea of ICTs being ‘mainstreamed’ in sustainable economic development has been adopted by many countries. For any country, sustainable economic growth is essential for a steadfast and well-balanced development of the entire country. One of the important factors supporting sustainable economic growth is the telecommunications technology and innovation, considering their role and functions as a modern-day indispensable infrastructure. It provides an opportunity for economic development compatible with the safeguard of the environment.

To lead the world's fifth-generation mobile communication networks (5G) market, China introduced several policies to support 5G industry development that will impact telecommunication operators, the main implementers in this industry. Thus, this study examines the impact of the government's 5G policy announcements on telecommunication operators' firm value in China, where the state exerts a strong influence on industry development.

Verizon agreed to buy TracFone, a provider of wireless prepaid services, in a deal worth up to $7 billion in cash and stock, further consolidating the US cellular market. TracFone, a unit of Mexico’s América Móvil SAB, has about 21 million prepaid customers in the US under its namesake brand as well as StraightTalk and Net10. The company doesn’t run its own physical network in the US and instead rides on other cellphone carriers’ systems for a fee and then resells service under its own brands.

20 Members of Congress from the California Delegation issued a joint statement regarding the application for rehearing that was recently filed by wireless carriers at the California Public Utilities Commission. They wrote: “We are outraged that wireless carriers are arguing against safeguards that will protect Californians during wildfire season and that they are doing so as devastating wildfires burn across our state.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission’s first-ever Rural Tribal Priority Window (TPW) came to a close. This special spectrum application window allowed for rural tribal nations to apply for valuable Educational Broadband Service (EBS) frequencies over their lands that had never been licensed. The agency received applications for spectrum on 266 separate tribal lands; 418 applications and amendments were filed in all. The decision to auction unassigned EBS was made in a July 2019 FCC rulemaking regarding EBS. But is auctioning the remaining EBS spectrum the right decision?