T-Mobile Calls 28 GHz Sharing With FSS a 5G 'Threat' as Satellite Firms Float Sharing Principles
T-Mobile said the joint AT&T/EchoStar plan to the FCC for sharing the 28 GHz band between fixed satellite service (FSS) and 5G applications (see 1604070059) is "a threat to 5G [that] undermines the utility of the millimeter wave bands for terrestrial mobile broadband operations." Meanwhile, EchoStar and other broadband satellite operators said they hashed out six principles the FCC should follow for FSS/5G sharing. "Contrary to the repeated assertions of the wireless industry, FSS is a primary service" under international and U.S. tables of frequency allocations, while decades of regulations governing 28 GHz band licensing "gives FSS express licensing priority over any terrestrial mobile service," the satellite operators said in a joint filing Friday in docket 14-177.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
T-Mobile said it "strongly opposes" the AT&T/EchoStar plan. The carrier characterized, in a separate filing Friday in the docket, the plan as giving satellite primary status in the 28 GHz band, overly constraining 5G deployment and "threaten[ing] the success of terrestrial mobile broadband use of the spectrum." Additional satellite earth station use of the 28 GHz band outside urban areas should be on a secondary basis to wireless, T-Mobile said.
The FCC "should respect" current earth station use of 28 GHz and "promote flexible spectrum use where appropriate," but T-Mobile said the AT&T/EchoStar plan would cause notable damage to terrestrial service deployment through the co-primary status cutting across numerous high population density areas. The joint plan also is "incomplete" due to a lack of detail on technical parameters that would govern satellite earth station operations in the 28 GHz band, T-Mobile said. "Satellite operators should have no primary rights to use the 28 GHz band, whether inside or outside the urban core," except rights they buy at auction or in the secondary market, T-Mobile said.
Giving satellite primary status defeats the rationale behind geographic licensing the FCC favored for commercial wireless service and eyed for millimeter wave band use, said the carrier. While mobile providers usually have been allowed to put stations anywhere in their authorized geographic areas that would give them maximum flexibility, the joint proposal "would strip mobile providers of necessary flexibility by creating areas in which they could not respond to future or changing needs," it said.
T-Mobile said it backs CTIA proposals (see 1605200057) to give existing satellite licensees "operation rights" on a secondary basis, while future satellite earth station operations could be permitted on a secondary basis outside the top 150 cellular market areas, subject to coordination requirements that could be developed. AT&T and EchoStar didn't comment Friday.
EchoStar and the others in their filing laid out suggested principles. They said: upper microwave flexible use (UMFU) service must protect co-primary FSS space stations against aggregate interference; FSS earth station sites should be grandfathered and protected; new FSS earth stations should be accommodated on a co-primary basis; and new FSS deployments should have a "safe harbor" of identified census tracts outside dense urban areas where FSS would presumptively be entitled to deploy individually licensed earth stations without coordination as long as there is no existing deployment nor is any likely. Satellite earth station operators shouldn't be required through auctions or secondary markets to compete with UMFU service for rights since it would be "virtually impossible for the earth station operator to ever be successful in an auction," and UMFU licensees would be unlikely to enter into secondary lease agreements with FSS earth station operators who also would be broadband competitors. They said the FCC should waive its presumption, at least for the 28 GHz band, that individually licensed earth stations will be built and start operations within a year of licensing. Other FSS operators behind the filing were Inmarsat, O3b, SES, ViaSat and OneWeb.