Information on Spectrum Dashboard Must Be Accurate, CTIA Says

"Accuracy of the data is going to be of key importance to CTIA and its members,” said David Redl, director of regulatory affairs at the association. “You have to bear in mind that since it’s on the FCC’s website, it’s going to carry the weight of the FCC behind it. Making sure that things are the way that the dashboard says they are is going to be important."

The commission describes the feature at http://reboot.fcc.gov/reform/systems/spectrum-dashboard as allowing “new ways for citizens to search spectrum in the United States” and “find out how spectrum is being used, who owns spectrum licenses around the country, and what spectrum is available in your county."

Attractiveness of the site shouldn’t be the FCC’s primary consideration, said Peter Tenhula, general counsel at Shared Spectrum, which develops radios that make dynamic use of spectrum. “I applaud the efforts to make the front end look pretty,” he said. “It’s really back-end data that’s important. Have standardized formats for that, make that available to manipulate.” Tenhula added, “It’s not necessarily humans that are going to be using the data, it’s the machines and the devices. ... Allow us to really drill down to find the holes, because that’s what the information provides is the ability to find the holes in the spectrum.”

The information made available so far is incomplete, Tenhula said. “If you take a look at the spectrum occupancy measurements that Shared Spectrum has done you'll see much more availability.” The FCC also must make sure that language the commission uses is accurate, he said: “Be very, very accurate with your terminology, what it means to be available or not available."

The dashboard has caused many concerns for low-power TV and radio broadcasters, said broadcast lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher, Heald. “The fact that the spectrum dashboard went up based on DTV transition information and only full-power TV was a little scary for these people because of some of the purposes for which the spectrum dashboard might be used,” Tannenwald said. “For example, television spectrum is sought by wireless microphone users on a secondary basis and soon white spaces user[s] on a secondary basis. If those people went to the spectrum dashboard and did not find all the secondary broadcast users they would make mistakes."

Another concern is whether the dashboard provides good information on roaming, Tannenwald said. “If you're a Verizon customer you can be on the Verizon network almost all over the country, but in rural areas you are almost certainly roaming not on a subsidiary of Verizon but on a company that has an agreement with roaming,” he said. “I don’t how you can find that out. I don’t even know if all that information is reported to the commission.” Also in question is how the dashboard will deal with public safety spectrum, he said. “Police and fire departments are very sensitive and absolutely don’t want information displayed about what frequencies they operate on so they can’t be hacked or interfered with maliciously."

Brian Higgins, with Wilkinson Barker, recommended a number of changes for the dashboard, suggesting its mapping features could be made more sophisticated so that users can search by market areas rather than just by counties. The dashboard also needs more information on the FCC’s allocation and licensing process for people outside the loop. But on the whole, it’s very useful, Higgins said. “I'm very impressed,” he said. “This is something that looks like you would purchase off of a commercial website, or something you would purchase on the open market, not something you would expect on a government website necessarily."

Joe Hanley, senior vice president of US Cellular, said the dashboard is especially useful for smaller carriers. “Navigating [spectrum] markets and making good decisions requires having access to timely, cost effective and accurate information,” he said. “This tool is an important part of that equation, particularly for smaller players.” Larger carriers, with billions of dollars in spectrum holdings “commit the resources required to create for themselves or buy on the markets tools that allow them to understand what spectrum is held by other players and what spectrum they hold and what the spectrum marketplace looks like generally,” Hanley said. “But for smaller companies and consumers ... a tool like the FCC has created with the spectrum dashboard is indispensable.”

Mary Bucher, chief of the Wireless Bureau’s Spectrum Management Resources and Technology Division, said the FCC wants to gather as much advice as possible before it finalizes a revised version of the dashboard. “We do have some ideas about how we can make the dashboard better, but we really need your input to make it the best possible tool to access information on how spectrum is licensed,” she said. “Our goal in putting this together was to provide one stop shopping for this information, which is not available at this time."

Since the dashboard went live, there have been 85,000 searches made from outside the FCC, Bucher said. But changes are coming, for example, to provide more information on spectrum leases. “For spectrum leasing, our thought is that we would include leases in the database and beyond that we would show on the licenses that are on the database what spectrum is being leased,” she said. “We're also looking at including leases and information on spectrum being leased in our data downloads and our maps as well."

The FCC is also updating the broadcast information and looking at ways to provide more detailed information for individual cellular service areas as well as spectrum available on tribal lands, Bucher said.