Key DOD Spectrum Official Says It Faces Further Auctions of Federal Spectrum

Wheeler is moving on from his current job at DOD. Peter Tenhula, deputy associate administrator for spectrum management at NTIA, said the general is leaving the post soon. Wheeler was “instrumental” to the success of the AWS-3 auction, he said. “We couldn’t have done it without him,” Tenhula said. A DOD spokeswoman said Wheeler is retiring from the Air Force. He's being replaced by Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan, also of the Air Force.

“We’re not done,” Wheeler said of the AWS-3 auction. “There’s absolutely no doubt. This isn’t the last time we’re going to go through this.” DOD is working with industry to make the AWS-3 frequencies available as quickly as possible, he said. “I’m moving approximately $3.5 billion worth of systems,” he said. “At the same time, [we’re] planning for a potential next auction."

Wheeler said the demand curve DOD systems face for new access to spectrum is “also daunting.” DOD’s spectrum requirements are, if anything, increasing faster than commercial requirements, he said.

DOD supports and is part of the “mobile broadband revolution,” Wheeler said. DOD buys and uses on a daily basis devices and technology offered by the wireless industry, he said. That can mean using a BlackBerry at a conference or “lighting up a battlefield with LTE,” he said. “I’m not sure people fully understand that connection.” The military used to use wireless devices “all the way to the battlefield; well, now they’re being used on the battlefield.”

DOD is changing its culture and is rethinking how it views spectrum, Wheeler said. “Congested and contested spectrum bands, new threats and emerging technology capabilities all compel new ways of planning for, defending and improving our spectrum access.” Wheeler said DOD is studying how spectrum sharing can work better. The new National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network (NASCTN) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, allows testing of technology that has implications for other federal agencies as well, Wheeler said.

Wheeler also made a pitch for bidirectional sharing, in which federal agencies would also be allowed to share commercial spectrum. Bidirectional sharing is major focus of DOD, but has raised some concerns in the wireless industry (see 1509010059). Sharing is “a way to use finite pieces of spectrum more efficiently, but that goes both ways,” he said. DOD is developing a two-way sharing pilot program with a number of carriers, Wheeler said.

“Commercial wireless services need more spectrum, we all recognize that,” Tenhula said during a panel at the conference. “Federal spectrum requirements are increasing at the same rate if not more.” Government agencies in charge of flight control operations, fighting forest fires, forecasting the weather and conducting law enforcement surveillance all need more spectrum as well, he said. “This has all been driving the need for advanced technologies,” he said. “It’s all about trust and transparency, which are essential.”

“These are really tough problems that we’re working and you need everybody to participate,” said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology. Knapp said he didn’t want to cite rash statistics, but the growth in the demand for data is easy to see. “Who would have thought, Wi-Fi in cars,” Knapp said. If you go to a local home improvement store, it’s easy to see that the IoT is here, Knapp said. “You hear stories about people going on vacation and they come home and there’s a flood in the basement,” he said. “They couldn’t do anything about it. Now you can remotely have a water shut-off valve. Open your front lock remotely, etc., etc., and we’re really just at the start.”

Data Demands Growing

Demand for data will just keep increasing, though projections differ, said Tom Power, CTIA general counsel. “We won’t really know until we see it,” though most past estimates have been on target, he said. “Demand is going to continue like that hockey stick and as long as we’re making the spectrum available the innovators and the smart folks … responding to consumer demand will figure out the details.”

Flexibility is key to keeping up with demand, Knapp said. “It’s neither licensed nor unlicensed; in fact, when you put the two together, they’re more powerful,” he said. The IoT isn't band specific, he said. “The blend we’re seeing is all over the map. The innovators decide where the right match is for what they want to do with the spectrum that’s available.”

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said spectrum management matters and the U.S. led the world on 4G. “I also know we have a lot more work to do to keep the wireless economy growing,” she said. “We are on it.”

Clearing more federal spectrum will be “slow going,” absent more incentives for agencies to relocate, Rosenworcel predicted. Federal agencies have a real need for spectrum and provide essential services, she said, echoing other speakers. “But we still can’t be blind to the great increases in commercial wireless demand that we are seeing,” she said.

The recently enacted Bipartisan Budget Act requires the FCC to auction 30 MHz of additional federal spectrum, but sets a deadline nine years down the road, Rosenworcel noted. “This process -- legislating quantities of spectrum, clearing federal users, relocating them … is too slow, it’s creaky.” There should be uniform spectrum currency to assess the value of federal spectrum holdings, she said. “Then, we could expand incentive auctions to federal spectrum users.” Agencies that participate would receive a cut of the revenue and could use the money to replace initiatives that might have been lost as a result of sequestration, she said.

Rosenworcel also said the Spectrum Relocation Fund could be further revamped to provide incentives for agencies that agree to share airwaves with other agencies. She also called for a rethinking of the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, which requires that any government official or agent receiving money for the government from any source deposit the money in the Treasury as soon as practicable.

Rosenworcel also predicted that future wireless networks will rely on spectrum that is “way, way up” the frequency table, as high as 90 GHz and beyond. The signals don’t carry far “but we can combine that limitation into a strength if we combine these high frequencies with dense networks of small cells packed together,” she said.