Verizon Communication CEO Lowell McAdam recently met with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to stress the importance of opening up high band spectrum for future “5G” networks, according to Verizon.
The meeting was memorialized by this Dec. 18 “ex parte” communication from Verizon VP of federal regulatory and legal affairs Maggie McCready to FCC secretary Marlene Dortch.
The initial meeting with Wheeler included McAdam, Verizon EVP of public policy and general counsel Craig Silliman and SVP of federal regulatory and legal affairs Kathleen Grillo, with Wheeler’s chief of staff Ruth Milkman and general counsel Jonathan Sallet.
On 5G, “McAdam emphasized the importance to the U.S. economy and U.S. consumer of the commission acting quickly to make the spectrum bands above 24 GHz available for mobile broadband. Verizon agrees with the commission’s primary proposal to grant flexible use rights to existing terrestrial licensees in the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands and to auction the FCC held licenses. McAdam asked for the commission to move quickly to adopt an order and to make this spectrum available for 5G deployments. McAdam reiterated Verizon’s commitment to be the first US company to roll out 5G wireless technology and described Verizon’s work with its 5G Technology Forum partners, including its plans to field test 5G in early 2016.”
Verizon announced during this year’s CTIA Super Mobility show plans to trial 5G technology next year on network environments, or “sandboxes,” at its Waltham, Massachusetts, and San Francisco Innovation Centers with partners including Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Nokia Networks, Qualcomm and Samsung.
McAdam and Wheeler also discussed running LTE in an unlicensed spectrum band and interoperability with Wi-Fi. The FCC has solicited information from industry stakeholders about LTE-U/Wi-Fi interoperability.
From the ex-parte communication, the Verizon team stressed “LTE-Unlicensed will allow wireless companies to provide their customers a better wireless broadband experience. They emphasized Verizon’s support of unlicensed spectrum and strong commitment to Wi-Fi. And they discussed Verizon’s ongoing collaboration with the rest of the Wi-Fi community to ensure that LTE-U coexists successfully with Wi-Fi.”
