CTA, Wireless Industry Showing Interest in Very High-Band Spectrum
T-Mobile, CTIA and tech players led by CTA filed initial comments in the FCC’s spectrum horizons proceeding. Commissioners approved an NPRM in February on spectrum above 95 GHz for new services and technologies (see 1802220048), though in the buildup industry showed little interest (see 1802200058). The earlier concern was that carriers, bent on deploying 5G this year, would largely ignore spectrum unlikely to see broad use anytime soon. Comments were due Wednesday.
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.
Daniel Mittleman, professor of engineering at Brown University, told the FCC the potential for the band is enormous. “I feel very strongly that this region of the spectrum is poised to have an enormous economic impact,” Mittleman said in comments in docket 18-21. “Use of frequencies above 95 GHz is no longer just a hope for the future. Moreover, my experimental work has shown that some commonly held beliefs about limited propagation characteristics are invalid. It is time now for the FCC to take the lead in opening the doors to the benefits of the new technology.”
Mittleman told us Thursday he doesn’t expect too much industry interest at this early stage. “Spectrum above 95 GHz is not yet on the radar for communications companies,” he said. “It will be, but not yet. Of course, terahertz is already a market for numerous non-comm-related applications, which is a big concern if FCC enacts rules that negatively impact those markets.”
“The continued technological advancements in computing and antennas are now showing the potential of spectrum above 95 GHz to help the wireless and innovation industries meet the growing demand for consumer connectivity to new and innovative consumer technologies,” said CTA. The spectrum could be used for wireless backhaul or delivery of HD video signals, CTA said. Japan Telegraph and Telephone used a 120 GHz link in a long-range transmission trial at the Beijing Olympics 10 years ago, the group said. “Researchers at IEEE identified bands above 95 GHz almost a decade ago as spectrum that potentially would support wireless backhaul.”
T-Mobile was also among the industry commenters. “Wireless network growth, in general, and the deployment of denser networks with additional base station facilities, in particular, means there will be a need for more backhaul capacity,” T-Mobile said. “The proposed use of the spectrum above 95 GHz may be able to help meet that demand.” The T-Mobile filing also made some technical recommendations for the rules for the very high-band spectrum.
CTIA said the spectrum will be most useful for fixed microwave and wireless backhaul. "However, given the nascent nature of technology for the spectrum bands above 95 GHz, the Commission should adopt flexible licensing and technical rules that will further U.S. leadership in the wireless marketplace," CTIA said. "Similarly, any sharing requirements for these spectrum bands should prioritize terrestrial fixed and mobile services while providing adequate interference protections to current and future uses."
The FCC is right to avoid prescriptive rules for the spectrum, Apple said. “Understanding the difficulty of predicting future spectrum uses,” the FCC “wisely attempts to implement the light-touch regulatory approach that it has lauded in other contexts," Apple said. Google also urged caution. "Opportunities for innovation ... can be established without adopting service rules at this time," it commented. "Indeed, establishing service rules too early could foreclose options for innovative new technologies that have not yet been imagined."
Michael Marcus, a former FCC engineer and proponent of looking at the extreme high-band spectrum, said Thursday that commenters are generally missing some of the most important questions teed up in the NPRM. Among them is whether the FCC will change its Part 5 experimental radio rules, which allow the FCC to cancel a Part 5 license any time without appeal, Marcus said. That makes sense for traditional licenses, but businesses won’t invest in equipment that “for arbitrary reasons isn’t useable the next day,” he said. “That’s barely discussed in the NPRM.”
Another big issue is that the FCC’s RF safety rules stop at 100 GHz, unlike the rules in Europe, Marcus said. The commission said it's addressing the issue through its 2015 NPRM looking at an update of radio frequency rules (see 1508250047), Marcus said. “That thing is four years old now, it’s mired in controversy and it’s not going anywhere,” he said. The lack of rules means companies can be more easily sued when RF devices cause health problems because there is no government RF standard, he said.