FCC Chief Lays Out Aggressive Timetable for Moving US Toward 5G

“With the new rules I am proposing in our spectrum frontiers order, we take our most significant step yet down the path to our 5G future,” Wheeler said. He said 5G must be the equivalent of “mobile fiber, 10-100 times faster than what we’re used to today.”

Wheeler said the FCC approach on 5G is different from that of other nations. China, the EU and South Korea signed a memorandum agreeing to work together to develop 5G, and the EU put up $700 million euros ($792 million) to pay for 5G research, Wheeler said. “That’s the wrong way to go,” he said. “Making the spectrum available and standing out of the way of technology development is far better than, ‘Well, let’s sit around and wait until we decide what it’s going to do and then make the spectrum available.’”

Latency must be extremely low for applications like remote surgery to make sense, Wheeler said. “The surgeon’s scalpel needs to be immediately responsive, not a blink later,” he said. “It currently averages about 10 milliseconds or about one hundredth of a second. That may sound pretty fast but it’s a snail’s pace in computing.” Latency must instead be one millisecond or less, or less than one-thousandth of a second, “to provide for real-time interactions,” he said. Larger, better connections require more spectrum, which means use of the high-frequency band, Wheeler said. “To accomplish speed and latency requires large swaths of spectrum, multiples of what is available today.” The FCC released text of Wheeler's speech, though he departed from the text frequently.

“Our 5G proposal is the final piece in the spectrum trifecta of low-band, mid-band and high-band airwaves that will open up unprecedented amounts of spectrum, speed the rollout of next-generation wireless networks, and redefine network connectivity for years to come,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler previously indicated the FCC likely would vote on the high-band rules in July (see 1605030056) and he has been particularly emphatic about special access reform (see 1604110065). Industry officials said the commitment to investigate a 14 GHz unlicensed band was new. “Our plan proposes making a massive 14 GHz unlicensed band,” Wheeler said. “Fourteen-thousand MHz of unlicensed spectrum, with the same flexible-use rules that has allowed unlicensed to become a breeding ground for innovation.”

Spectrum sharing will be key to success in the high-frequency spectrum, Wheeler said, noting ongoing conflicts over sharing between satellite operators and wireless carriers in the 28 GHz band, one of the bands scheduled for reallocation in July. “Sharing is essential for the future of spectrum utilization,” he said. In the 28 GHz band, “we will strike a balance that offers flexibility for satellite users to expand, while providing terrestrial licensees with predictability about the areas in which satellite will locate,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler warned that possibilities of what 5G will offer are still becoming clear. “If anyone tells you they know the details of what 5G will deliver, walk the other way,” he said. “It is the capacity to use this new capability that will determine what our future will look like.” Wheeler said he never would have envisioned the growth of Uber in a 4G world. “Back in my venture capital days, I wish I had,” he said. “I know there are things we can’t envision now.”

Rollout of 5G will mean everything from autonomous vehicles to smart pill bottles, Wheeler said. “If something can be connected, it will be connected in a 5G world,” he said. “But with predictions of hundreds of billions of microchips connected in products from pill bottles to plant waterers, you can be sure of only one thing -- the biggest Internet of Things application has yet to be imagined.”

Unlicensed Proposal 'Incredible'

Ted Rappaport, founding director of NYU Wireless at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, told us after the speech that he was impressed by the 14 GHz unlicensed proposal. “That’s incredible,” he said. “We were advocating that in some of our comments to the FCC.” The proposal could mean the agency will be looking at higher spectrum bands than it has proposed in the past, Rappaport said. “Maybe they’re going to go above the 100 GHz ceiling.” The transition to 5G is also going much faster than industry predicted, he said. “A couple of years ago, people didn’t even believe millimeter waves could work. Now, we’re going to see the commission voting on a set of rules on July 14,” he said. “That’s lightning speed.”

USTelecom President Walter McCormick asked why the FCC is moving forward on a special access order. "We understand the purpose of regulation in the absence of competition, but find it puzzling that the chairman would propose regulation in the presence of competition, particularly when the goal is to incentivize more investment, not less," McCormick said in a statement.

“As the Chairman noted in his remarks, the United States needs to speed the deployment of 5G if we are going to continue to be the world leader in mobile communications,” the Wireless Infrastructure Association said in a statement. “As the Chairman underscored, the responsible and efficient deployment of all forms of wireless infrastructure is needed in order to effectively provide mobile broadband in both urban and rural communities across the nation.”

“Qualcomm has been developing the building blocks for 5G for years -- just as we pioneered the fundamental building blocks for 3G and 4G,” said Dean Brenner, senior vice president-government affairs. “While 3G and 4G connected people, 5G will connect everything.”

CTIA President Meredith Baker stressed the importance of moving quickly on 5G in a posting released Monday before Wheeler spoke. “Moving with urgency is critical because other countries want to seize our mantle of mobile leadership,” she said. “From the EU to Japan and South Korea, policymakers abroad hope to reap the financial, social and technological benefits of deploying 5G first.” U.S. carriers are moving aggressively, with 5G trials underway from Austin, to Bellevue, Washington, to New Jersey to Oregon, she wrote.

The Satellite Industry Association said in a news release it's “encouraged by the Chairman’s recognition of the essential importance of creating a spectrum sharing environment that permits both terrestrial and satellite to coexist and thrive in the development of these next-generation wireless services.”

“Filings in the record show a widespread consensus in favor of the commission's proposal to extend the current seven GHz unlicensed band all the way up to at least 71 GHz,” emailed Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “Advanced gigabit Wi-Fi technology, known as WiGig, is already completed and in devices.”

Fifth-generation “will deliver 50 times the throughput of 4G LTE and millisecond latency, and will power countless connected IoT devices and services,” said Charla Rath, Verizon vice president-wireless policy development, in a blog post. “5G networks will drive the future information economy, education, healthcare, social services, sustainability, and so much more.”