CTIA Wants Compromise on Commencing Operations, Market Testing

a meeting Sept. 2 with staff from the Wireless Bureau, Incentive Auction Task Force, Media Bureau, Office of General Counsel and the Office of Engineering and Technology, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 12-268. The FCC proposal to limit the "commence operations" definition to areas where a 600 MHz licensee has begun site activation, and commissioning tests using permanent equipment and antennas, “would unnecessarily preclude rapid deployment of the spectrum,” the wireless interests said. Under the CTIA compromise, low-power TV and unlicensed users would still be able to use the 600 MHZ spectrum until the wireless users started substantially using it, but the wireless licensees would have the right to do “market testing” of their new spectrum. The tests would take place “in only a fraction of the areas where full commercial launch would occur,” CTIA said. “LPTV stations and other secondary users could continue to utilize the mobile wireless band in the vast majority of areas beyond this stage.” By beginning market testing, the wireless company would have officially commenced operations, under the compromise proposal, CTIA said. Where market testing isn’t required, the definition of commencing operations would be as the FCC has proposed. “Inhibiting market testing in any fashion, and particularly in the limited window available after full power broadcast television stations are relocated, will greatly jeopardize wireless providers’ ability to meet the six-year interim build-out requirement,” CTIA said. “Under the compromise proposal, secondary services will not be impacted in the vast majority of markets and geography.”