Wireless Industry Has Strong Concerns About Proposal for 3.5 GHz Shared Spectrum Band
With final rules for the 3.5 GHz band reportedly on a fast track at the FCC, industry groups are making a number of recommendations to the agency they say will lead to more successful use of the band for spectrum sharing and small cells. CTIA and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) raised the same issues about protections for Priority Access License (PAL) versus General Authorized Access (GAA) users. Commenters also urged the FCC to restrict the size of exclusion zones, where access to the spectrum won’t be allowed to protect government incumbents.
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FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hopes to see action soon on final rules, most likely before the end of the year, agency officials told us. The FCC approved a further NPRM on the future of the 3.5 GHz spectrum in April (http://bit.ly/WfBy0i). The next step, officials said, is release of final rules. Comments were posted by the FCC Monday and Tuesday in docket 12-354.
When the FCC approved the rulemaking, commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly complained that the proposed exclusion zones are too big for the band to reach its potential as a laboratory for spectrum sharing. NTIA officials said last week they're working with the Department of Defense and the FCC to try to narrow the exclusion zones (CD July 11 p19).
"The position from the carriers has been pretty consistent, but the FCC hasn’t really made any changes in response to the concerns that have been raised,” said a carrier executive Tuesday. “There is still work that needs to be done to get the DOD exclusion zones reduced.”
PAL spectrum, under the FCC proposal, would be licensed and sold through competitive bidding, offering one-year licenses of 10 MHz channels each covering a single census tract. The GAA tier “would be licensed-by-rule to permit open, flexible access to the band to the widest possible group of potential users,” under the FCC’s proposal.
"Unfortunately, while ostensibly guaranteeing that PAL users are protected from harmful interference, some of the Commission’s proposed rules could produce a backwards result that effectively gives GAA users not merely equal, but superior rights to PAL users,” TIA said (http://bit.ly/1oESsf7). It cited proposed provisions that give GAA users access to unused PAL channels, while also reserving 50 percent of available spectrum for GAA use. The proposal gets things backward “if the underlying premise is that PAL users -- who must meet more stringent qualifications in applying for spectrum -- should have priority,” TIA said. The net effect of proposed rules would be to reduce the amount of PAL spectrum below levels needed to offer “economically viable service,” the group said.
The FCC needs to take steps to make PAL service more attractive to industry, CTIA said (http://bit.ly/1oXmRZi). Possible fixes include issuing “larger licenses with fixed frequency assignments, a minimum five-year term, a renewal expectancy, and flexible power limits for outdoor PAL use that support greater flexibility,” CTIA said. The group said the FCC should provide more certainty for companies that want to make licensed use of the spectrum. Proposed rules rely on “untested and unproven sharing elements,” CTIA said. Better enforcement is key, and security and control technologies must be improved to ensure “rogue or unauthorized emissions” by GAA devices don’t interfere with licensed use, the group said.
CTIA and TIA emphasized the need for the government to narrow exclusion zones that will protect incumbents. “The current exclusion zone proposal identified in the Further Notice would cover 60 percent of the U.S. population and, if adopted, would severely restrict the size of the addressable market in the U.S.,” CTIA said.