Tech Heavy Hitters Say Report Shows Wi-Fi Safe in 6 GHz Band; O'Rielly Interested
A coalition of companies interested in unlicensed use of the 6 GHz band filed an FCC report explaining how the companies believe the band can be opened without harmful interference to incumbents. Industry officials said the report responds to concerns raised by the FCC, particularly Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, who asked for details on an interference mitigation strategy. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly indicated his support and urged action.
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This “answers many technical interference issues re: unlicensed use in 6 GHz band,” O’Rielly tweeted Thursday. “Certainly work ahead but this needs to be a Summer @FCC NPRM!” Commissioners approved a notice of inquiry in August (see 1708030052) raising broad questions about mid-band spectrum. It's unclear whether the FCC will follow that with one or multiple NPRMs, wireless lawyers said Friday. A former spectrum official said the FCC's current holdup in scheduling spectrum auctions (see 1801160034) could also slow follow-up to the mid-band NOI.
Representatives of Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm and MediaTek explained the report, by RKF Engineering Solutions, in meetings Thursday at the FCC, including with all commissioners except Mignon Clyburn. They also met with staff from the Wireless Bureau and OET. “The study analyzed sharing between unlicensed operations in the 6 GHz band and existing services,” the coalition said in a filing in docket 17-183. “RKF’s findings are clear: unlicensed services can successfully coexist with the primary services present in the 6 GHz band.”
The band is crowded, with links used by the fixed satellite service, fixed microwave (FS) and by the mobile service (MS) for public safety and electronic newsgathering applications such as the TV broadcast auxiliary and cable relay services. RKF said for FSS, maximum interference from unlicensed use was well below internationally accepted protection criteria -- almost 40 times less than existing interference caused by licensed fixed services already sharing the band with satellites. For FS, the probability of interference was less than .2 percent, the firm said. It found for the MS, unlicensed use of the band didn’t degrade service 99 percent of the time and the few problems could be addressed through techniques already used by MS operators.
The study "is great news for broadband consumers and for more efficient use of the public airwaves,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “The FCC should be able now to move forward on a rulemaking that enables Wi-Fi to share the 6 GHz band.” A 5G future depends on “gigabit-fast Wi-Fi as much as it will on high-capacity carrier networks,” he said. The 6 GHz band, directly above the unlicensed 5 GHz band, is “the most promising” band for unlicensed, he said. Members of the Broadband Access Coalition also asked about the 6 GHz band in meetings earlier in the week on the 3.7 GHz band, he said (see 1801240045).
Chris Szymanski, Broadcom director-product marketing and government affairs, told us consumer demand for wireless data is growing fast and Wi-Fi carries most of that traffic. “To support our bandwidth needs, the most obvious, and technically best, solution would allow Wi-Fi devices to use radio spectrum adjacent to the airwaves used today,” he said.
“One of the key drivers for a study was to determine whether [new uses of the band] would cause interference to existing licensees, many of whom are our customers and partners,” said Mary Brown, Cisco senior director-government affairs: “We are very pleased that the study reveals statistically that interference is negligible.” NCTA was briefed and looks forward to further discussions, a spokesman said. Public safety groups and the FCC didn’t comment.