FCC Needs to Stay Ahead of Demand on IoT, and Spectrum Is Key, Knapp says
The FCC “at least at this juncture," is not pursuing a spectrum band for the Internet of Things, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp Wednesday at the Winnik Forum at Hogan Lovells. But Knapp acknowledged that spectrum is a huge IoT issue. FCC “flexible use” rules for licensed and unlicensed spectrum “negates the need for a dedicated Internet of things allocation,” he said. “We don’t expect right now that there’s going to be an IoT band.”
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Industry needs to focus on matching the needs and application to the right spectrum band, Knapp said. “If you have an application that’s demanding a lot of bandwidth, the right place for it might be higher up where there’s more bandwidth available.” That must be counterbalanced by the consideration that higher frequency spectrum's propagation characteristics aren't as good, he said.
“It’s really difficult to predict long term what the spectrum ramifications are going to be,” Knapp said. Connected vehicles were a big topic at the CTIA annual show in September, Knapp noted. IoT devices are a hot item in any home improvement store -- from smart light bulbs to wireless thermostats and garage door openers, he said. “The possibilities really are limitless,” he said. “It is taking off on all fronts.” Knapp said the FCC is awaiting an IoT report from its Technological Advisory Council. Among the issues TAC is weighing are how to make sure technologies embedded in devices can be changed, privacy and security. The FCC is “trying to stay ahead of the curve,” he said.
Applications must be designed so they’re spectrum efficient, Knapp said. For example, video uses a lot of bandwidth, so it makes little sense to transmit video from a surveillance camera when there's no movement, he said. Cameras can be designed to come on only when there’s a change, he said. The FCC monitors whether devices emit too much “chatter,” using up unnecessary bandwidth, Knapp said. “We generally let those things be addressed through the marketplace,” unless they create issues for everyone, he said. “Part of it is sending the message to the community, and a lot of this happens in the standards activities,” he said. “Some of it is driven by natural or engineering factors, like we don’t want to eat up the battery.”
IoT “is exactly what we’re looking at” with a Communications Act update, said David Redl, majority counsel to the House Communications Subcommittee. “It’s been a lot of reading and it’s been really enlightening,” Redl said of the industry comments filed at the subcommittee. Staff is “going very deep” in looking at issues raised in a rewrite, he said. The Communications Act is 70 years old and “has become a little bit of a Frankenstein’s monster over the years,” he said. Shawn Chang, minority counsel to the subcommittee, said Democrats also support the review. “There is a need to revisit whether or not the Communications Act needs to be modernized,” he said.
Spectrum is going to be “key” whether you call it IoT or machine-to-machine communications, said Kathleen Ham, T-Mobile vice president. Ham said one big concern in the wireless net neutrality rules will make it harder for T-Mobile to compete. It would be a “shame” for the federal government to “put its thumb on the scale against competition,” she said.
Michael Calabrese, with the New America Foundation, noted the huge number of uses for IoT. For example, he said, dairy cows need to have a calf every year to produce milk, but it's difficult for farmers to track when they are in heat. Now, some dairy farmers are implanting devices that transmit the animal’s temperature, he said. “An email pops up when Bessie is in heat and they send the bull out,” Calabrese said. “All is well in dairyland.”